


Hang in there buddy (Klance)

by Rona23



Series: Lance and Keith, neck in neck [11]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aromantic Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Biphobia, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Gay Keith (Voltron), Gay Shiro (Voltron), Gen, Ghost Lance (Voltron), Ghosts, Homophobia, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, LGBTQ Character, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Langst, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Slow Burn, alternative universe, mentions of biphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-01-23 14:12:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 55,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18551395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rona23/pseuds/Rona23
Summary: Keith has been a medium ever since he can remember.His spirit Guardian, Allura leads him in his quest to help ghosts move to the afterlife. Only that he´d prefer not to help her.While his Reputation becomes a burden in his daily life, he tries very Little to fulfill his Job accordingly. However, being aquintainces with the head of the police, he is quite used to crime Scenes and corpses.But what happens when a ghost appears who does not seem to have a corpse. How come, he is yet to be missed? More so, since the ghost in Question Claims to be unaware of his corpse´s whereabouts?It should be an easy quest. However, to Keith it is not. More so, since along the way, he discovers what truly happened during the accident three years ago. And suddenly, the quirky ghost at his side becomes the Person he feels for the most.Alternatively: The Story behind the death of Lance McClain





	1. Chapter 1

Keith hated his life. To be specific, he hated his job. Or rather, what Allura wanted him to think was his job.   
Allura was his sister. At least the closest to a sister Keith would ever get. Since, you see, Keith was the only one who even knew of her existence.  
Furthermore, he was the only one who knew that she existed ten thousand years ago. At least according to herself.  
All because Keith could see ghosts. Of course.   
He was a medium. And the only medium whom he knew of. At least the only one alive. That was the only thing Allura and him had in common.  
And she said it was his fate and duty to help ghosts to move to the after life. Yeah right.

Exactly that is, why Keith hated his life.   
Keith Kogane was a high school student. He wanted to apply to some random college. He may even wanted to become a history teacher, but he never actually wanted to talk to the dead.   
He wanted a normal childhood, he wanted to be a normal teenager, with normal problems, normal friends and perhaps even a relationship. The latter was something he was admittedly scared of. Not only because of his sexuality, but also because most people would be a bit thrown off by the fact that he saw dead people.   
How could he ever tell a partner, he felt uncomfortable with that creepy dead stalker guy watching them? Basically, privacy was nonexistent to him. A life of his own? Impossible.

However, he didn´t have to think about that anyway, since the whole school thought of him as a freak. And that even without knowing that he was gay. Think about it. In a city so homophobic, he was afraid to get punched by literally anyone, being gay wasn´t his biggest problem.

It all started, when Keith was six years old. As he met his very first ghost. She had followed him around for five month´s until someone decided to talk to him about it.   
That was long before he could distinguish between the living and the dead. And talking to literal air and calling it “Mom”, was bound to freak people out.

Only days later he was forced to spend the whole summer at a medical facility which tried to “cure” his hallucinations. At some point he pretended that his ghosts had left. Which, obviously, they never had. Never did. Much to his own displeasure.  
Even though it came as a shock to him at first, he got used to his constant company. Eventually, he helped his mother to pass on.   
Shortly after, Allura had stumbled into his life.

But now it was public knowledge that he saw ghosts and even years later, in different towns, at different foster homes, people had heard the rumors.

That is why Keith was not surprised that the popular kids were messing with him constantly. One of them being Lance McClain.   
Keith barely knew him. He was not exactly nice, though one of the guys Keith minded less about.   
Lance seemed to be the guy to pick on you only to start a conversation. He never really insulted him other than his hair style or his awesome grades and honestly, those sounded more like compliments than insults.

His girlfriend, Nyma was worse. She insulted him as a cripple, a brain dead idiot or a depressed emo with mother issues. 

Needless to say Keith liked to avoid Lance and his friend group. He had talked to Hunk, Lance´s best friend, here and there. But Hunk was an exception to everyone. Hunk was probably the most friendly person Keith ever met in his entire life, but Keith was not a very social person. With being a medium that was kind of ironic.

Keith´s best friend was probably Pidge Gunderson, alias Katie Holt, the head of the IT club. And they only ever talked about school related stuff. Or, in some cases about the ghost issue, when Allura had convinced him to help again.   
And she had the gist down to detail when it came to convincing Keith, to literally anything.

Pidge always raised an eyebrow, since she doubted the existence of the supernatural, but didn´t neglect the possibility of their existence all together.  
She usually helped him with his researches. She even admitted how impressed she was, whenever he seemed to know something spectacular about the descended. Often, even the relatives only got to know about hidden messages, when Keith found them.

Those talks were secret between Keith and Pidge, which made Pidge his only companion in the fight against the supernatural. Except for one particular friend, but he was an old man and as such was more like an uncle to him. Rather than a friend.

How we even got to this subject? Well, Keith was the type of person to watch people in his free time. And as creepy as it sounds, he was currently fixated on Lance McClain. Yes, the very same Lance McClain from before.

“You know, isn´t it kind of weird? He´s unusually quiet.”, Keith said. Pidge and him were sitting under their favorite tree. The school yard may be a big place, but this tree was perfect for watching people. It was a huge tree, with a wide and mighty crown that spend cool shadow in the summer.   
It also happened to be a bit out of reach from the center of the school yard.  
It was amazingly easy to avoid people here. The popular kids always preferred the weird mountain of tires that was closer to the giant school building.

“You mean Lance?”, Pidge merely looked up from her laptop, eyeing him with slight confusion.   
“You know, I know he picks on you a lot, but you really shouldn´t focus on him so much. If you keep doing that, it makes bullying you more fun to him.”

“Yeah, you´re right. Still. He´s all alone, look.”, Keith answered with a nod in direction of the front gates. That in itself was reason enough for Pidge to follow his gaze. 

Similar to Keith, she usually enjoyed silence. That and good gossip, which was probably the reason why she even talked to him. Keith knew stuff about people. He said, ghosts told him. She still had not figured out how he did it, but she liked the accuracy of the things he told her. Believing him was obviously not an option.   
“You´re right, he does seem lonely. Where is Hunk? Wait, Nyma and Rolo are also gone?”

“You think we should talk to him?”  
Pidge laughed at his suggestion and shook her head. She had some quarrel with Lance herself, though the nature of that was a mystery to Keith.   
“Oh come on. I bet he´d only laugh at us, I´m not giving him any pity. If he managed to annoy Hunk enough to leave him behind, he probably deserves it.” Again, Hunk was the best person they ever met. 

“Maybe Hunk is just busy at the IT-club?”  
“He´s not. I mean, he was a couple weeks ago, but he isn´t now. At least I haven´t seen him for a while. A real shame, if you´d ask me.  
He is brilliant. He once built a self cleaning trash can. I mean, it malfunctioned, but you should have seen Iversion´s face. I´ve never seen a smile drop that fast. It was hilarious.”, Pidge chuckled at the memory.   
“I didn´t know Iversion could smile.”, Keith interjected.   
“Me neither.”  
Keith smiled at her, before he turned back to look at the subject of his irritation.

Lance was standing right beside the entrance, looking around school, never settling on anything or anyone. He had his hands in his pockets, his signature grin missing. He was weirdly calm. For a guy usually so jumpy, that sure said something. His bag hang loosely at his side, a sign that he was ready to leave immediately. Should someone he know try to approach him.

“Say, Pidge. You are a girl. Why do you think all these girls seem to have a thing for someone like him?” Well, Keith. You had to ask, didn´t you? Then again, he didn´t know anyone who could ever deny that Lance was, to some degree, attractive. However, Keith knew very well that was not nearly enough to actually like someone. Though it was frustrating to be confronted by someone like him all the time.  
He needed to be more careful with his words.  
Even the slightest hint could give him away, and Pidge was smart.

Again, Pidge looked up from her laptop. “Why?”, she grins as she nudges his shoulder. “Do I smell jealousy there?”  
Keith opened his mouth to argue, but Pidge was faster than the embarrassment that spread inside him.

“No need to worry. Despite what you may believe, even more girls seem to have a thing for pitiful emo boys like you. I mean, not that I get it, but I´m sure, if you asked out some chick, she´d totally cling to you.”  
Keith laughed awkwardly. “That´s not what I was getting at. I – well whatever.”   
Man this was getting weird.

“Fine, fine, no need to get your tongue in a twist. I think it´s probably because he´s so chatty and talk active and weirdly good with people? I don´t know. You see ghosts, he charms them, everyone has a thing, I guess.”, Pidge sighed once more and closed her laptop. Now that Keith thought about it, Pidge had never, not once shown interest in anyone.   
He was fairly sure his secret would be safe with her. Than again, no need to add anything to her blackmail lists.  
“Well, you´re the expert.”, Keith grinned back. Pidge snorted at that. “Yeah sure.”

“KEITH”  
Keith jumped and Pidge practically fell over. “Jesus, Keith, what the hell.”  
“Urgh, I´m so sorry, Pidge.”, he turned to the side.  
“Allura what the actual fuck?”   
In his peripheral vision, he could see Pidge raising her eyebrow, as she watched him talk to nothing in particular. With nothing in particular she meant a certain, very much particular point right in the middle of thin air that she herself had trouble focussing on. 

“It´s not my fault you ignored me all day. This is the only way you EVER answer to my calls.”

Allura was a beautiful woman with white hair, soft brown skin and a British accent. And in Keith´s vision she was almost translucent, if you looked closely. Translucent meaning, she looked like a normal human being. But the light invaded her whole body, spreading to the outlines of her skin and clothes and causing them to glow a yellowish light. It was stunning, really. Like a jewel or moving water in the middle of sun light.   
“Who died this time?”, he asked, almost jokingly. Only that she only ever consulted him when someone had died. He had already learned his lesson with jokes of the sort.

“A married couple. I don´t know where they are from, but apparently they had a huge fight. They are still arguing and it is sooo annoying, I tell you. I´m ninety percent sure they killed each other, but you have to help them anyway.”

“Can you, please, only once, give me the weekend of?”, Keith begged. 

“Only if nobody dies. And we both know that never happens. You are the only person capable of helping them, so please, do your job!”

“It´s not a job, if you don´t pay me!”, Keith hissed back, wary of his surroundings. The last thing he needed right now was attention to him talking to himself. Most people didn´t know he still saw them. The rumors only said, he once had an issue with it. And that it now was solved. He didn´t need people to alternating the story.   
“And didn´t I tell you not to bug me about these things in school?”

Allura rolled her eyes. “If I listened to you, you´d never help anyone.”

“Seriously, give me at least one ghost who does not need my help with their murder or whatever. I don´t care. I don´t want to see corpses all the time. Or go to random peoples funerals on my free day. It´s depressing!”

“I´ve told you many times now! The circumstances of their death´s has nothing to do with me! Those people don´t stay here, because they want to. They stay for a reason. It is your job to find out why and convince them to pass on.”

Keith frowned. He´d never get his free time, would he? He was too tired to keep up the argument anyway.  
“Fine! Alright. I´ll do it. But after school. I can´t skip another of Iversion´s classes. He´s going to kill me!”

“Thank you!”, Allura spit back. A second later she disappeared. Like she did all the time. Not that Keith was not used to that already.

“Soo...”, Pidge finally spoke up, when the silence kept getting too long to not be awkward. “I´m taking it, movie night isn´t happening?”

Keith sighed. “Depends. Apparently I have another case of domestic violence to take care of. If I solve it after school today, I may have enough time tomorrow.”

“Have you ever had a case, where a ghost just appeared, said cheerio and your job was done?”, Pidge asked.  
“I wish.”, Keith sighed. “It seems those people move on without me.”

“I hope it´s not a poltergeist.”

“I doubt that. Allura said something like, only people with the purest of hearts may interfere with the living world. Something about love being able to move people´s hearts or some shit.  
I´ve only ever met one poltergeist and she needed a hundred years to get the hang of it. But I have to admit, she really was nice.” Keith murred under his breath . 

“That was the one who wanted to sell her house right?”  
“No, that woman didn´t know her son was still alive. I was referring to the woman who wanted to feed her dog, because there was nobody else to do so.”

“Oh. Didn´t you adopt that dog?”  
“Why, yes, I did.”, Keith smiled at her.

\-----------------------

Keith loved reading. He loved books. Especially new ones. And drawing and new sketchbooks. Well, he loved the smell of paper. Honestly, who doesn´t?

And, he loved to forget about reality here and there. He could get lost in every kind of story. Even, or rather especially in ghost stories. Ironically so.  
Allura had complained about that fact a lot, but Keith couldn´t help it. He could relate to these stories.   
And without being forced into personal business of actual dead people, he managed to enjoy them.  
It was one of his favorite pass times to just sit there, read and pet Kosmo.   
Kosmo was a husky with dark purple shimmering fur. Since he needed a lot of attention and needed to take at least one long run a day, Keith sometimes let him run next to his motorcycle, while he was driving to run errands.  
May it be because he was a loyal dog, but Kosmo seemed enjoy his life at the Takashi household.

Today however, Keith didn´t have the time to even think about any of this. Despite it being friday. His favorite day of the week. Usually. Not today though, since he had another job waiting.   
So, when he came home from school, he made himself a sandwich, while Allura stood next to him, tapping her arm in anticipation. And obviously Kosmo running around him, waiting for him to get him outside.

Keith sighed. He still had not figured out, whether or not Kosmo could see or notice ghosts. Sometimes he seemed to just know there was someone present in the room. Other times he just lay low and ignored everything around him.

Talking to animals. That was a skill Keith would love to possess. But no. It had to be ghosts.

“You´re going out again?”, Keith looked up, his mouth full. He was standing in the kitchen of the small shack him and his foster brother Takashi Shirogane shared.   
Shiro always encouraged Keith´s tendency to disappear once in a while to solve ghost cases. Not because he believed him, which he didn´t. He didn´t even know what purpose Keith was leaving the house for.   
He liked that Keith actually went out of his way to meet people. For a socially awkward person, Keith sure went out a lot. Well, mostly to funerals and relatives of recently decended people, but still. 

“So do you yourself?”, Keith retorted, not feeling up to answering the question, but he noticed the coat hanging loose from Shiro´s prosthetic arm. Said prosthetic a sad reminder of the “accident” he was in a couple of years ago.  
“I wanna talk to Adam.” Keith nodded in understanding. 

Adam was Shiro´s fiancé. His secret fiancé so to speak. Most people were not exactly accepting of gay people around here. And people already talked about Shiro behind his back. 

He was a 25 year old man, living with an “innocent psychically ill teenage boy” in a small apartment all by themselves, without any neighbors for about half a mile. What would they say, if they found out Shiro was gay? Not to mention if anyone figured out, so was Keith?  
Another reason, why Keith decided to never come out. He´d just die alone, or as alone as one could be with the constant attention of the dead.  
Honestly, he was not too worried about his future. Things would work themselves out. They usually did.

On top of that Shiro had been in a car accident about two years prior. He may have lost his right arm, but he claimed the PTSD and insomnia were worse by far.

And Keith believed him. He heard his screams almost every night. In the other car had been two people. One man and his daughter. The daughter was, to Keith´s knowledge still in a coma. Shiro visited her and her family from time to time.   
The father had died that day. Shiro´s relationship with Adam had suffered ever since and though they were still fiancés, Keith just knew it wouldn´t stand for much longer.

Shiro went through a lot for someone his age. Keith didn´t want to add anything to his plate, so he stayed quiet.   
“Just, be careful when driving, alright?”, Keith said. “Call me if you get there.”

“Yes, mom. Don´t worry, I´ll manage.”, Shiro laughed and ruffled his brothers hair.   
“Just saying. I´ll keep my phone on. No matter what happens, I´ll always be there for you.”

“That should be my line.”, Shiro shook his head. He didn´t show it, but he loved how Keith cared and doted on him. And he needed to accept that even a grown man like him needed help sometimes.   
Keith did his best to be there for the few people who actually decided to stick with him.

Shiro grabbed his keys and waved goodbye. Keith waved back. “See you Sunday.”

The apartment was empty after that. Well, not quite of course.   
“You sure are a good brother.”, Allura suddenly spoke up. “Oh shut up.”, Keith through his knife at her.   
“You know, if I was alive, I´d totally sew you for attempted murder at least once a week.”  
She shook her head, if only to hide the fond smile she´d otherwise threw his way.

“Oh come on, it went right through you!”, Keith complained, but also smiled.   
“Yeah, does not change the fact that you love to throw knifes at me. I´m starting to feel like you don´t like me or something.”  
“Ha ha. Come on, let´s go.”, Keith rolled his eyes. 

He left the apartment through the front door, just as Shiro carefully started his car and drove of.   
Keith went to the small garage that belonged to Shiro and him, put on his helmet and shove his motorcycle closer to the road. 

Only moments later, he kick started his bike and drove of in the opposite direction his brother did.   
“Allura, where exactly are we going?”  
“Downtown. They lived near the Galra pub. You know that place, right?”, came from behind, were Allura sat princess style on his bike. As a ghost, she never had to worry about helmets or any kind of security measures. That didn´t stop her from reminding him of them, though.

Actually, Keith had lied to Pidge before, there was another poltergeist whom he knew of.   
Allura. But if he told Pidge that, she would demand her to proof her existence, so she could believe him. However, Allura had made very clear that she never interacted with human life´s. Keith would have to convince her somehow and he didn´t want to think about the price that may cost.

“Don´t remind me. I tell you, if I run into Lotor on my way there, I´ll kill you.”  
“Yeah, that may be a problem. As I take it, he´s their son.”

“Oh for god´s sake.”

\----------------------------------------

Lotor, as Allura explained, was the new owner of the Galra pub. Where it´s name came from? Nobody really knew.   
How Keith knew about it? Well, it so happened that Lotor was the reason for Keith´s gay awakening.   
Not that Lotor knew, but he used to be the kind of guy whom Keith would have opened up to eventually.   
He had been the only one who has not been a dick to Keith. For a while that is.  
But as soon as Keith started to trust him with the ghosts he “used to see”, it did not take long for the school, previously unaware of the craziness he called his life, suddenly knew all about it.

Lotor had eventually left him alone in school, since he didn´t want to be seen with a freak. Needless to say, Keith didn´t want to ever see him again.  
Today was just his luck. Perhaps he should have taken Kosmo along. For mental support. 

When Keith drove onto the pub´s parking lot, he could see a police car standing close by.   
It was Coran´s car, if Keith wasn´t mistaken.   
Coran was probably the only good police officer in the whole precinct. And it so happened that Keith knew him pretty well.

At first, Coran had been wary of him, his sudden appearances, his inside knowledge of the descended and stuff, but eventually he listened to Keith´s story.  
And as surprising as it was, Coran seemed to believe him. And still left him alone with those questions Keith so desperately dreaded.   
However, he made sure to inform Coran that he could only talk to a few ghosts. Only those who stayed long enough to solve some of their life´s problems. So he could not be called anytime a murder was on the loose. Keith would be called by Allura. And then he could approach Coran, not the other way around.  
Coran was very kind and understanding and had accepted his conditions. Needless to say, the fact that it was his car Keith saw today was a huge relief to him.

Keith took of his helmet, turned of his bike and walked passed the car to enter the small building.   
Even from the entrance he could make out noises and eventually, words.

“I told you, I have no idea what happened. They fought a lot. I´m not surprised, honestly. She was a liar and my father a drunkard. I did not exactly like them, but I would not kill them!”

Right, Lotor. Shit. Of course they would question him.

“I believe you. We´ve had a couple of noise complains, those past few weeks. I don´t suspect you. This is basic protocol. May I ask where you were, when it happened?”, Coran´s soothing voice answered.

“I was asleep, while they were supposed to run business. I thought some of our customers were in a fight again or something. Stuff like that happens at least twice a week or so. Didn´t think it would be them.”

Keith sighed, as he let his hand rest on the door knob.  
He took a deep breath before he entered. And was met by a sudden, intense and mad kind of glare.

He was struck with sudden silence. “What the hell are YOU doing here?”  
Good question. Maybe Allura could answer that, but then again – On the other hand, Coran was here and he was usually in charge. There was nothing Keith would have to hide in this situation.

“Well... to your information, my spirit guardian, as you liked to call her, informed me of your parents death. I´m here to release their ghosts.”, Keith said. His voice an ironic mix of sarcasm and honesty. Coran was used to his antics and with him around, Keith was not afraid to utter his opinion. Or the truth, that is.  
Lotor just stared at him for one brief moment. Ready to break out laughing at the ridiculous joke.  
He looked at Coran who seemed unfazed by his sudden appearance, then back at Keith who only had a cold glare for him. The seriousness of his gaze stopped prevented the laugh to ever come out. Confusion took it´s place.

“Hello, Keith, my boy. I see, you already know Lotor. What about his parents? Have you already talked to them? Can you ask them why they fought?”, Coran cheerily welcomed him. Invading his privacy far more than necessary, putting his hands on his shoulder. Like a father who was just reunited with the son he had not seen in weeks.  
He looked at Lotor sheepishly, whose eyes widened in disbelieve. You´d think he just lost all his faith in humanity.

“Ehm, no. I never talked to them before. And I still have to. Allura just informed me about an hour ago or so.”

“No, seriously now, how do you know my parents died?”, Lotor spat out, ignoring the serious, almost professional conversation.

“You want to see the crime scene? Perhaps they are still there?” Keith really loved that Coran had accepted him as a medium. Reactions like Lotor´s were pretty funny. They eased his mind and satisfied the feeling of hiding his ability in school.   
But he had to keep a straight face, otherwise he might risk Coran to believe that he was not honest with him.

Still, the fact that Coran was still ignoring Lotor was indeed, pretty amusing.   
The internal crises that Lotor displayed was almost enough for Keith to think it was worth coming here. Almost.

What must it be like for Lotor, being stuck with the guy he betrayed and a crazy police officer, investigating the death of his parents, who themselves were stupid enough to kill each other.  
To think Monday´s were crazy. (It was Friday.)

As Keith nodded towards Coran, the officer lead him to what seemed like a living room, where random police officers were collecting and photographing potential evidence.   
Lotor followed close behind. Disbelieve and anger still visible in his usually stoic expression.   
Only, however, until they reached the police tape and Coran held him back. “Please wait here. This is nothing for children.”

“What the- this guy is even younger than I am!”, Lotor spat back, clearly distraught.

“Yes, but this is not his first crime scene, not his first corpse and he has proven to know how to behave.”

Lotor wanted to hiss back, but apparently could hold back enough to stop a retort. Coran was still a superior officer. He better not risk getting him on his bad side.

Perhaps this day would not be so awful after all, Keith thought, suppressing the grin that was still creeping up his face.

He followed Coran passed the police tape until they went into another room close by. The wooden door led to a public bar. Who even lived in the same house they sold their alcohol in? That was a definite miscalculation of Lotor´s parents, Keith decided. 

The blood forced Keith out of his daydreaming state. The satisfaction on Lotor´s behalf disappeared, leaving a seriousness that finally fitted their current sitation.  
Because, the corpses had not been removed yet.  
A tall man was lying somewhere on the steps of the stairs that lead to rooms Keith would never step into.   
A giant kitchen knife was stuck inside the man´s skull. Only meters from him lay his wife. Her head cut open as she apparently fell down the stairs and hit her head. That much Keith could tell. Despite the discomfort that grew in his stomach at the sight.

Weirder, however, was probably the fact that Keith could see these people twice.  
Keith saw their corpses on the ground and their translucent counterparts sitting on the bar table.  
“Coran, they are right over there.”, he nodded in their direction. Coran gave him a firm look of understanding.

Keith moved passed the police officers. Through the room that was designed with all different kinds of dark, red wood. Splintered glass lay everywhere on the ground. Liquids of different shades of red darkened the surface, similar to the blood on the stairs. And the smell of alcohol and cigarettes corrupted his lungs like the first signs of a cold.   
Some of the officers wore familiar faces. He already met him once or twice. Other faces raised their heads at him in suspicion, only to be reminded by Coran to do their job.

The couple sat a few seats apart. They were arguing. Only that now, as he approached them, Keith could actually hear them talk.

“Geez, I can´t believe it took dying for you to finally sober up. And you´re still as insufferable.”, the woman spat at the tall man.  
“And even in death, you can´t leave me alone.”  
“Oh shut up. As if your death was my fault!”  
“How is you stabbing me with a kitchen knife not your fault?”  
“You threw me down the stairs!”

Keith sighed. “They totally killed each other, Coran. They just admitted it.”, he shook his head, what a stupid case.

“Yeah, I figured as much, but I need the exact circumstances, if possible.”

“Fine, I´ll talk to them. But if Kinkade or Curtis call me a weirdo again, you´ll have to send them outside!”

“Alright, alright. Were is the couple?, I´ll go stand on the other side and pretend like I´m talking to you.”

“Thank you.”, Keith smiled gently at him. Coran truly was a good man. More an uncle than a friend, but still, somehow, a friend.

Keith pointed at the couple, sighed and waited until Coran had placed himself on the opposite side, to make the conversation that was about to unfold, seem “natural”.

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs.. I´m sorry, I don´t know your names?”, he spoke up. The ghosts turned to him, glanced at each other in question.

“Is he talking to us?” “I don´t think so? He´s alive, I hardly believe he can see us, you idiot.”

“Actually, I can. My name is Keith Kogane, I´m a medium.”

They exchanged glances again.  
“Wait a second. I know you! You and my son used to be friends, right? You´re that weird kid who claimed he could see -”, the woman´s eyes widened. “Ghosts?”, Keith sternly said.  
“He´s that mental kid? Don´t talk to him. He´s delirious.”, the man said, crossing his arms.

Keith glared at him. “Are you serious? I am currently talking to you. You are literally dead. You could at least pretend like you´re sorry you ever doubted me.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “I apologize for my idiotic husband. He´s stupid as hell.   
To answer your question, his name is Zarkon. It´s not his real name, but he is edgy like that. You´d think he´d at least leave his son spared from those antics.”

“Now it is my son!”, the man hissed. “Coming from the woman who claims to be his mother, when she´s really not!”

“Excuse you! How many times do I have to tell you, I was the one pregnant with him. Surely I´d remember that? While you were off doing drugs or what not!”

Keith groaned. Great. Really great. Now he was in the middle of their family drama.

“Can you please tell me, why the both of you are still here?”, Keith practically begged.  
“What do you mean?”, the woman asked, confused, but still angry.

“I mean, why didn´t you move on to the after life? Every ghost usually has a reason for staying on earth. Since both of you are here, I´m taking it, you haven´t settled everything in your life´s.”, Keith explained as calm as he could, rephrasing what Allura once told him.

“Well... If you listened, I assure you, my husband is simply an idiot who doesn´t know when to give up. Which is the reason we still live in this awful establishment. He doesn´t want to let go of it.  
I, for one, am only here, because my own son is foolish enough to believe his father that I were not his mother.”

The woman sounded annoyed. But Keith recognized the story somehow. Back when he was still friends with Lotor, he had told him there was this weird woman in his house. His fathers “spouse” or something. Her name was Honerva and she apparently tried to convince him that she was his mother. Because she raised him or something. Great. Because if this is the reason the both of them were still here, he´d have to talk to Lotor.

“Don´t worry, I´ll talk to your son.   
One more thing. What exactly did you fight about before you died?”, Keith asked. He didn´t like these ghosts, but at least they were compliant in answering his questions. That was not always a given.

“This witch wanted to sell the pub, obviously. And I´m telling you, if someone were to take the only thing you care about from you, you´d become a murderer too.”, Zarkon spit out and Keith jumped back a little at the force of his words. Soon after, the woman started shouting at her husband again.  
“Seriously? The only thing you care about is this pub? What about me? What about Lotor?”

Keith was glad ghosts were rarely able to interfere with real life, otherwise he was sure the pub would have been destroyed by the sheer force of madness in their eyes.

He sighed and waved at Coran to move closer again, so he could tell him what happened.  
He looked over at Lotor, who was still standing where they had left him.

Yeah, not looking forward to that.

\----------------------

“Sorry mom, I won´t sell the pub. It is my home after all. Filled with all the good memories of my childhood. You two however, you need to move on to the next life now.”, Lotor awkwardly stared ahead of him. Fake pain obviously displayed in his gestures. He seemed obviously annoyed. But apparently the simple fact that Keith knew that Honerva wanted to sell the pub was enough to convince Lotor to play along. Maybe it was a secret Lotor had somehow found out about, but nobody else had?

Coran and Keith waited expectantly for him to finish this problem.   
This was also part of their deal. Keith helped with the circumstances of the death´s, while Coran convinced the relatives to talk to the nothingness in front of them, until Keith was happy with the outcome.

The method may be unorthodox and didn´t always work perfectly, but it made both their jobs a lot easier.

Keith waited for Lotor to finish his awkward monologue.   
Opposing to Keith´s conversations with the dead, the ones of the relatives were mostly one sided. No surprise there. They could neither see nor hear the dead.   
But Keith loved that he was the only one who didn´t actually talk to himself. Despite popular belief.

“See, I told you my son is never gonna sell it!”, Zarkon grinned at his wife.   
“And I told you, he´s OUR son.”

“Fine, fine. Done already? Can you move on now, please?”, Keith rolled his eyes.

“Yes yes, fine. Where is that witch?”, Honerva sighed.  
The witch was probably Allura. Keith was convinced that Allura always tried to get ghosts to the other side by herself first, before she came for him to help. One of the reasons he actually helped her out. She didn´t ask for help because she was bored. But she had no other option.  
She was standing right beside Keith now, waiting for him to do finish.   
For some reason, even some of the ghosts couldn´t see her. Keith didn´t know why, but she explained it was a certain skill she developed over the past ten thousand years.

“I´m here, follow me. I´ll show you the way.”, she suddenly spoke up, a gentle smile on her face.  
It only took a few moments of farewell that the couple followed her. A faint light appeared wherever they disappeared but Keith was already used to it. He didn´t even bother looking after them.

“Are they gone now?”, Lotor fidgeted in his spot. Clearly embarrassed that he did exactly what he had humored Keith about all those years ago.

“Yeah, I think so.”, Keith replied, barely looking at him, while Lotor sighed in relief in clear ignorance of the lies he just told his dead parents.

“Good, because I hate that freaky woman and I need to find someone to sell the house to.”

Despite everything, Keith just ignored the man. His job was done now. He said his farewells to Coran and left soon after. Alone this time. Allura was gone. For a while, Keith hoped.  
She´d probably appear on his door step in at least two weeks. Random, but for now he´d be fine. Or so he thought.


	2. Chapter 2

Keith rarely had cases that were solved this quickly. Despite what he initially believed, he had time this Saturday. Which is why he called Pidge, to inform her of the good news.

This was the reason why he found himself on top of one of the most comfortable beds in the whole world at this very moment.  
Pidge´s room was messy, sure, but she had a collection of video games and movies that left even the towns local video store pale in comparison.

Tonight, they had decided to watch an old show about giant robots. They were almost half way through, since they had started the show a few month ago. They got from seven to ten episodes each session. Keith loved those nights. As exhausting as they may be.  
One of the reasons was that Pidge seemed to know the cheapest brands of the best snacks and always had a high amount of soda or unhealthy caffeinated energy drinks in stock. So, in short, they only ever moved for the bathroom.

In return for the snacks, he helped her whenever she needed to know stuff about robotic or engineering related stuff. With his connections to ghosts, alias gossip and his experience with tempering with technical stuff (mostly his bike), he knew were to get the best tools.

He lend them to her and showed her how to use some of them. Pidge was smart, she knew a lot about technical things. But she was clumsy. And she needed a lab rat, here and there. And Hunk, her science buddy, wasn´t always available.

“Hey, Keith?”

“Yeah?” “Is Allura here right now?”, Pidge asked. She was in thought, Keith could tell, because she wasn´t focused on the flying robots like she usually was.

“No, not that I know of, why?”  
“I was wondering-”, she stopped and sighed, as she put the show on silence, with the press of a button on the remote.

“You were wondering?”, Keith asked, a bit too tired for ghost related questions.

“Why do you think she´s still here?”, she asked. Keith fidgeted in his position and wrapped the blanked closer around him. Keith didn´t answer at first, as he wasn´t sure what she meant by that. Until she elaborated: “I mean, she helps people move to the after life, right? But she herself is a ghost. She also died, but is still here. Why?”

Keith hesitated. He had asked himself the very same question multiple times. Of course he asked Allura before. But her answers were a bit vague. And he didn´t dare question her further. She was a frightening person.

“She told me, she is searching for someone to take over her job. In her previous life, she was a medium, just like me. And since I am apparently not doing my job, she has to show me how it´s done.”  
“Do you know why is she so obsessed with releasing these ghosts? Does she even know what comes after they, as you say, just disappear into light?”

Keith put down the bag of chips. He turned to her, now equally deep in thought.  
“I – I don´t know honestly. She just disappears with them all the time. And some time after, when the next ghost appears, she pops up again.”

Pidge scanned him from where she sat. “That sounds – random.”  
“It does, doesn´t it? She doesn´t even care how I convince the souls to come with her. I barely know why she needs my help anyway. Can´t she just force them to come with her?  
I mean, I once threatened a ghost to destroy his piano, if he didn´t leave with her. She didn´t even glare at me. It really doesn´t make sense.”, Keith added.

“Well, it´s probably not her moral then. Can you draw her for me one more time? I´d like to see what she looks like. Perhaps I can find some information on her online.”

“Sure, I´ll try.” Keith grabbed his sketchbook. He always had some paper and a pen with him, wherever he went.  
Well, not always. One of his sketchbook pages was once published on the school magazine. It was a page someone had ripped out of it, when he didn´t pay attention.  
He had been drawing the schools cheer leading team. He remembers that back then, he had been unsure whether or not to draw them instead of the male swim team. Now he was glad he did. He figured that if someone saw him draw half naked men, people would start talking.  
Now he was called a pervert, but at least nobody made homophobic comments.

Pidge watched him, as she took out her phone. She tapped frantically. And for a while, the tapping noises and the scribbling sound of pen on rough paper were the only sounds filling the silence, while the screen of the TV still illuminated the room with ever changing colors.

Keith had a pretty decent memory. Which is why he was able to capture most of Allura´s essence pretty accurately. 

“I think this is probably useless.”, Pidge suddenly declared. Keith wasn´t even halfway done with his drawing.  
“What? Why?”  
“You said she was ten thousand years old, right? The only stories I can find about humans and human culture are archaeological findings. For someone who wants to study history, I would have figured you´d check this out already. Perhaps she lied?”

“That – may be possible. Anyway, this is what she looks like.”, Keith looked up. Barely surprised by her answer. It was true. Allura knew way too much stuff about modern society and how to behave, to be a reminder of the new stone age. He always suspected it a lie. 

But then again, who knew how time passes for ghosts?  
“That´s her?”, Pidge asked, squinting her eyes in focus of the picture. “She looks like Coran´s niece, don´t you think?”

Keith turned to her. “She what? Wait, you know Coran?”

“Ehm- well, not exactly. But he came to town like what, ten years ago? I didn´t trust people who suddenly appeared out of nowhere back then, so I did some research.  
I mean, she does look older in your drawing, but the shape of the face and her eyes and hair are fairly the same. Also, Coran moved here right after she died. Apparently he could not it, so soon after her father, his best friend and brother in law died as well.”

Keith´s eyes widened. “Wait, that would make sense. I´ve been talking to Allura in front of Coran before. He tends to look weirdly sad when I say her name.  
Is that is why he helps me out?”

Well, that certainly explained a lot. “Still, why does she pretend to be ten thousand years old?”, he asked again, knowing Pidge wouldn´t have an answer.  
“Perhaps time works differently for ghosts? I mean, she did age up, didn´t she? Can ghosts grow older?”  
“I have absolutely no idea. I don´t even know how she died?”

“I don´t know? Perhaps she was sick or something?” 

“All I know is he moved here from Miami. If you can call it that. She just appeared out of nowhere one day. ” Keith nodded at himself. “Could you search for Mediums in Miami?”

“Oh, yeah, right.”, again, Pidge got lost in her phone. “Oh look, there it is! Oh man, that´s her, isn´t it?”, Pidge showed him a picture and sure enough, that was her. Younger, sure, but Pidge was right. She barely changed.

The photo belonged to an old article. The girl was a victim of a murder attempt. Apparently she had been too close to a crime scene that she was investigating. The girl, according to the article, was known to be a medium that helped people converse with the dead. In this particular case, however, she had been investigating unauthorized, according to the report. 

Keith sighed. As informative as this article may be, it was useless information. He knew that much already. Allura was a medium who died. This was only proof on her behalf.  
Keith shook his head, why did he even ask.

Pidge looked at him in thought.  
“You know, I´ve known you for a couple of years now, Keith. And I know you´ve never proven that you can see ghosts and it really seems hard to believe, but I doubt you´re the kind of person who could make all of this up. I´m starting to believe that perhaps, you´re not that big of a liar after all.

I don´t know why, but you know this girl. You talk to her. She lived all the way in Miami, Keith. There is no way you ever met her before. You´re from Texas. This article was not as easy to find as it may seems. And it even claims she is a medium.  
You know things about dead people, nobody else seems to know. I´m honestly about to consider you´re the real deal. 

However, don´t think my trust comes lightly. If it turns out you´re lying to me, I will destroy your life.”

With that, she put down her phone and turned up the volume of the episode again.

Keith kept looking at her. That was – unexpected. Frightening, sure. But he´d lie, if he said it was not also a relief. After all, he was not a liar.

\---------------------------

“Hey Allura, say, does time work differently for you?”

“It does.”, came the simple answer.  
“Why?” “My job requires a lot of time.”  
“Don´t we have the same job?”  
“Not exactly, no.”

\-------------------------

As every week, Sunday came far too soon. Moreover, Sunday itself passed with every page Keith turned on his book. At some point he had lost count of how many stories he had finished that day, while Kosmo lay next to him. Bored. 

But when he heard the soft noise of keys turning at the door, Kosmo jumped to his feel in excitement. And Keith felt relief as he realized what this meant.

Shiro was home.  
However, the relief slowly washed away, as the door opened with less force than usual. A sign that something was amiss.  
When Shiro entered, slowly, sweat on his forehead and a dreaded look in his eyes, Keith knew immediately that something was wrong.

“Shiro? Are you ok? What happened?”  
Keith instantly stood up, throwing his book somewhere on the couch, maneuvering around it and confronted his brother head on. But Shiro didn´t respond.  
“Tell me what happened!” It was not a question anymore, but a demand. Shiro looked up, the stress creeping up his face as tears stained his cheeks.

“Adam and I – we – we broke up.”  
Despite the heaviness dragging down Shiro´s voice, Keith couldn´t help but exhale a breath. For a second he thought -  
Last time Shiro wore that expression, he had been convinced he killed someone.

“Come in, sit down. I´ll make you some hot chocolate.”  
Keith lead his brother towards the small kitchen and instantly started heating up some milk. 

“You want to talk about it?”, Keith asked, forcing his voice to keep calm. Shiro was under a lot of stress, he reminded himself. Do not add to it! Even if Keith had seen this coming a long time ago.

“I – just – he told me he couldn´t do this anymore. Me being all stressed out and stuff. And then the distance and all that. He gave me back the ring, he´s serious, Keith!  
I just. I need some rest. I really need to go to sleep, Keith.”

“I understand. It´s fine, Shiro. Drink your chocolate and go to sleep. And take the day off tomorrow. Call your boss, I´m sure he´ll understand. “

“You mean, I can just call Iversion and tell him Adam broke up with me?” Shiro attempted to laugh, but failed miserably.

“No, I mean, the school would understand that you´re sick and need time. They can manage one day without a gym teacher.”

“Yeah, yeah right – just...”

“Shiro, listen! You haven´t called a day off in the past three years! Not even when you were practically on your deathbed with that crazy fever you had last year. Lay down, you need this.”

“Yeah, yeah. Alright.” Shiro´s voice was distant. Keith sighed. His brother surely was a lost cause.  
“Here, drink your chocolate.”

They sat there in silence for a solid hour, until Shiro had stopped shaking and went to bed. Keith helped him take of his prosthetic and tugged him in.  
He shut of the light and closed the door, except for one small gap. He couldn´t bring himself to leave him all alone in the darkness. Especially since he never knew whether or not Shiro actually fell asleep. The man had trouble closing his eyes, after all.

Keith shook his head and sighed once more this evening, until he went outside into the shivering cold.  
It was dark, but out here, close to the country side, he could hear the wolves whistling in the distance and could see the stars shining brightly in all the blackness.  
Keith crossed his arms over his chest as he shivered from the cold. He needed this sometimes. Especially when Shiro was so out of it. Keith barely had anyone to turn to when it came to his brother. And right now, he needed a clear head.  
Just sitting on the steps to the front door of their small shack, eyes glued to his motorcycle that stood right next to Shiro´s car would surely calm him down. The way it usually did.

Shiro´s car.

Keith stood up. He could be wrong, but -  
The closer he stepped towards the car, the more clear it became. Right there, on the shining silver metal of the front of the small vehicle was a dent.  
It hadn´t been there on Friday, he was sure of it. He checked on Shiro´s car in secret every week, to make sure Shiro would not have a problem on his way towards Adam.

But there it was, clear as day. A small blood trail remained on it. Keith looked at it, his eyes widening in horror as fear struck him. For a moment, he expected Allura to appear again, right this instance. And it scared him. Frightened him. Horrified him to his very core.  
Not again.  
He stood there, staring at the bad omen, unable to move or say anything. 

At some point, he started shouting Allura´s name into the darkness. It was 2 am, when he realized, she wouldn´t answer him. At least not tonight. 

So he went inside again, praying to the gods that Shiro just hit a deer. And that it was the shock of killing an animal that resurfaced the memories of the incident three years ago and not a living, human being. 

Later Keith would have wished, that he didn´t go back into the house that night.  
That he didn´t wait for Allura to tell him what happened. That perhaps he had dared to ask Shiro what he was hiding. And that he had taken his motorcycle to follow the road Shiro came from. To find out what happened that night.  
But Keith was a coward, used to people solving his problems for him, while he himself hid behind a curtain of arrogance and ignorant bliss.  
It would take a while until he realized his horrible, horrible mistake.

\-----------------------------

When Keith stood up the next morning, 7 am as usual, Shiro was still asleep. At least, he had not left his room.  
So Keith called the school, to inform them of Shiro´s current condition, without telling them the details.  
For some reason, people liked to treat mental illnesses less worth than physical ones, so he just told them Shiro was unavailable for today. By law he was not required to give an excuse, so the school would have to accept it.

After he got himself some breakfast, prepared himself lunch for school and something for Shiro as well, he left a note for his brother.  
“Just rest, Shiro. I called the school, you´re excused.”

He left after that, closed the door, grabbed his keys and drove to school.  
For once, Keith felt unusually awake. He didn´t get much sleep last night. The anticipation kept him awake.  
He was still waiting for Allura to inform him of a tragedy.  
But what if something happened, only that there was no ghost to take care of? If the ghost just moved on? There was no guarantee Allura even needed his help. Would Keith ever find out? What exactly happened?  
Keith really had to talk to Shiro this afternoon.

When he finally reached school, he couldn´t even remember, if he stopped at the stop sign some streets prior. Did he even take his usual route?  
In fact, he was so distracted, he passed by the popular kids without turning or lowering his head.  
He felt them look at him. The piercing eyes of arrogant pricks who thought he was a creep.  
Keith only forgot to avoid them today. And despite his quietness, it was as though they made a fuss about him.

He noticed some of the things they were doing, though. Like how they pointed out that he was alone today. Right, were was Pidge again?  
Or how Lance raised an eyebrow at his attire. He could hear him whispering something about his ´stupid mullet´, or whatever Lance liked to call his hair cut. Again, he ignored it.

He also noticed, how Nyma practically repeated his comment and threw some random insult back at him.  
Keith only scoffed at them, throwing them the bird and heading straight to class.

It didn´t take long for class to start. But Keith wasn´t in it. His mind was already occupied. How to start the talk with Shiro later that day?  
“Hey, Shiro, you didn´t perhaps – kill someone last night?” Yeah, no, he couldn´t do that. “Hey, Shiro, we should talk about that dent in your car.”  
Keith really, really hoped, it was a deer. An animal or anything, really. Anything unspectacular and not important enough to mention. Hell, maybe Shiro had hit his own car with a red spray can when Adam rejected him. How nice that thought sounded.

First period went by fast. Faster than Keith liked. That was surely saying something, since he hated chemistry.  
Usually it took forever, but today just went by in a blurr.

And Pidge wasn´t even there! He only shared a few classes with her and apparently today was the first day of some kind of event for the IT club, so she was unavailable for like, the rest of the week.  
He should absolutely not disturb her, or else she may throw the project at his head. Which was the only reason she did not win the first price last year. (She came in second. Up until this day, she had not forgiven him. And she made sure to remind him of his debt at least once a week.)

Still, when the bell rang to initiate break time, Keith felt himself take a breath he didn´t know he was holding.  
So he went outside, towards the tree, were he always spend his free time. Only that now, he was considering whether or not to send Shiro a message per phone.  
However, as he saw Allura already waiting for him, all thoughts were forgotten. All the relief he had felt before was replaced by dread and cold fear. For a second, he considered to escape. But what would that do? So he decided against it. He´d have to figure this out either way.

“Allura!”, he immediately started the conversation, ignoring that perhaps, his voice was a bit, let´s say, loud.  
“Oh hey Keith. Wow, never thought you´d ever talk to me this – excited. Changed your mind about the job?”, she cracked a suspicious smile.

Keith shook his head and gulped before he kept on talking. “Please tell me, whoever died, died because of some kind of disease or something. Please tell me, it was not an accident.”  
Allura raised one eyebrow at that.  
“Why? Was someone you know in a car accident this morning?”  
Keith eyes widened in horror as his face paled instantly.

However, Something about the question was amiss and as he noticed what it was, irritation mixed into his fear.  
“Well, yeah, my brother was. But not this morning. Last night.”, he told her.

“Well, lucky then. Nobody died last night. He´s is probably fine -”

“Yeah, no, I know he is, but-”

“Keith, nobody died in a car accident.”, Allura tried to calm him down and Keith sat down, relieved. “Thank god!”, he murmured.

“Anyway, you really need to help this guy move on. He´s been following me around, ever since I found him and he doesn´t stop annoying me!”, she gritted her teeth.  
Only then did Keith noticed the tall person standing behind Allura. He could barely make out the way light traveled through his soft sun kissed skin. Illuminating the last person he ever expected to see like this. 

You know, it was one thing, going to crime scenes, meeting ghosts right next to their corpses or perhaps some of them following around their loved ones. It was a whole different story to see one coming to school like nothing happened.

Keith jumped at the sight, as he finally realized that he had seen this ghost this morning already. Just that he didn´t notice he was a ghost.  
Right in front of him, watching him with suspicion and mistrust, was Lance.  
“What?!”, Keith stuttered out in shock.

Lance glanced at him, anxiously looking around, as if to make sure Keith was actually looking at him and not someone who was standing right behind him.

“You died?”, Keith whispered to himself and stared right into those widened eyes.  
Of course it was a surprise to Keith.  
But it didn´t take long for him to move passed his initial shock. 

Lance, however, only now realized that Keith could actually see him. Keith could practically hear the wheels turning in his head.  
He was proven correct as Lance gaped at him.  
“Holy shit, you can actually see me!”

“No shit, Sherlock. Why are you so surprised. I can see Allura, too.”, Keith crossed his arms with a pout in defense.

“Wait, seriously? She´s dead, too?”, Lance asked, looking between Allura and him.

“I thought she was a medium or something.”  
Keith narrowed his eyes in disbelief. “Seriously? You used to make fun of me for seeing ghosts and this is your conclusion?”

Lance shrugged his shoulders.  
“Well, what did you expect? I just woke up, minding my own business and suddenly she told me I died! It´s not like I believed her, until I noticed everyone was ignoring me.  
Unless this is just a sick prank. Which, if so, haha, you got me.” Lance turned once more, shouting the last part, but nobody even looked up at him.  
Lance sighed and looked at Keith again.

“But I can see them pointing at you and laughing. And I´m pretty sure, they´re laughing at the fact that you talk to yourself right now.”

Keith squinted his eyes. “And whose fault do you think that is?”  
Lance glared back. “Not mine, if that´s what your implying!”

Silence stretched between the two of them, Allura only watching their little interaction. Already annoyed by their antagonistic behavior.

“Soo... I take it you two know each other.”

“No” Keith said at the same time Lance said “yes.”  
They stared at each other.  
“Don´t lie! You just accused me of bullying you! Of course you know me. We share almost all our classes!”, Lance complained.  
Keith hissed back at him. “That doesn´t make me know anything about you other than that you´re mean and obnoxious!”

Lance soaked in a breath to answer, probably equally pissed, but Allura stopped them.  
“Keith, Lance! Zip it! Keith, you are supposed to help him get to the after life, not argue with him about your childish issues.  
Lance, just – shut up please.”

“Excuse you?!”, Lance stumbled back in one swift motion, but he wore a mocking grin. 

“You´re right, Allura. Except that I don´t care. If you really want him to come with you, convince him yourself.”

Lance´s grin faltered as it was now him who squinted his eyes at Keith.  
“Seriously, do you talk to everyone like this? No wonder you don´t have a girlfriend.  
Like, do you help people go to the after life with that loose mouth of yours?”, Lance shook his head.  
“Forget it, even if you actually managed to be nice. I already told your friend here, I´ll stay.”

“What is your problem?! “

“I don´t have a problem! I have my reasons and those are private, so leave me alone.”

The glaring contest continued for a while. But only until the school bell rang. Keith sighed, more out of annoyance than defeat, but it was clear Lance took this as his win.  
According to his smug grin that is.

\------------------------

When Keith came home that day, he had completely forgotten about Shiro. 

The door was still locked, when Keith forced his keys in. Keith just wished, Allura wasn´t so persistent. And somehow, she had managed to convince Lance to follow him home. Perhaps she used force. Perhaps Lance was just eager to annoy someone who could actually hear him. Allura was lucky she could disappear into thin air. 

The biggest problem was, Lance never stopped talking.

He didn´t even stop in class. Which is even more annoying, since Keith had decided to actually pay attention for once.  
So, eventually Keith told him “this is the reason why your grades are barely above average!”. Which was an information Lance had slipped in his waterfall of a monologue.  
Lance wanted revenge, obviously, but he didn´t even have to lift a finger, because their teacher had called Keith out for “bullying his neighbor”.  
The guy next to him, his name was Jamie, or James or whatever, had been asleep through the whole lecture, so he as well got a ted talk by Iversion.

Lance had just laughed at both of them. Perhaps that was why he calmed down and just patiently stalked Keith everywhere. Sure, he still annoyed him, while trying to make him respond to him. But this was not Keith´s first ghost that tried to make a fool of him in public. So he continued his silent treatment, even all the way home.

But then, again, Keith was left with one more problem. Now he would be confronted with Shiro. And he did not know what to say to him.  
He groaned internally, but sighed anyway. There was no way around this.  
“Lance, may I ask for a favor?”

“Oh, I don´t know if I´m up to that. Spill it, I don´t promise anything.” Lance grinned. Clearly he was not interested in listening to Keith at all.

“It´s not for me. I just need to talk to my brother. As you´ve probably overheard this morning, he was in a car accident yesterday. And he seems a little out of it. I need a clear head for that. You can bother me again, later.” Keith tried. But he knew it was pointless. What was it to a ghost, if a mortal was suffering from mental illness?

“I didn´t know you had a brother.”, Lance replied slowly. Eyes stern as he considered the offer. He considered the offer?

“Yeah. I don´t want people to know.”, Keith admitted hesitantly, as he let Lance into his house.  
Keith noticed how Lance waited for him to open the door, which irritated him at first. Allura would have long gone through the door without any warning. Keith was used to her lacking sense of privacy. Then again, Lance was also new to the whole ghost thing.

“Why not?”, Lance asked. They entered the living room, still no sign of Shiro.  
“Well, he is an elementary gym teacher with PTSD, depression and – well - I guess people would probably question his sanity, if mental illnesses run in his family. I mean, I´m adopted, but that is something HE would not take as an excuse.”, Keith whispered, hoping for everything that is holy that Lance got the hint. And that Keith himself was reading the small gestures of decency and pity on Lance´s face correctly.

“Oh, hell. That´s harsh. Why exactly are we whispering?”, certainly, Lance had started whispering too.  
“I´m not sure if he´s still asleep. And to him, I would be talking very loudly to myself. I don´t need him to worry about me. Not with his fiancé breaking up with him already weighing him down. Why are YOU whispering?”, Keith retorted with a smile. Pointing out the break up on purpose. How would Lance react to that? It was a test to see, whether or not Lance actually cared. Because it seemed like he did.

But Lance had stopped actively listening to him. Some kind of realization spread on his face at an alarming rate as he shoved Keith to the side.  
Surprised, Keith had to catch himself before he stumbled to fall over.

“What the, how did you -”, he started, but was interrupted by the glassy look Lance wore as he stared ahead of him. Right there, through the kitchen door, they could see Shiro sitting at the table.  
A coffee, half empty, probably long forgotten stood in front of him.  
Shiro stared at his prosthetic that lay lifeless beside him. 

His eyes were widened, sweat running down his neck and he was shivering, despite the warmth of the sun that shone through the window, leaving bright yellow rectangles on the kitchen table. Breaking only where his cup and prosthetic lay.  
Shiro was still in his night clothes, which were basically just some pants and a shirt.

“Your brother is Takashi Shirogane.”, Lance said, his voice empty, almost lost at the sight.

Keith looked at him, surprise taking over his initial instinct to test Lance.  
Then again, Shiro´s story was known to the whole town. So, perhaps he should feign ignorance.

“Yeah, he looks horrible, doesn´t he? I mean, it´s common knowledge he has PTSD, but people underestimate what that actually means.  
I hear him screaming almost every night, since that accident three years ago. There was a car crash, too. Which is why he´s so upset about what happened yesterday. A man died, his daughter is in a coma.  
Shiro visits her at least once a week. He hasn´t forgiven himself. His relationship suffered a lot from that and yesterday, A- I mean, I mentioned this before, his fiancé broke up with him.  
I really hope, he hit a deer on his way home.  
Perhaps I should not have gone to school today, after all.”, regret was weighing down Keith´s voice now, as he moved towards the kitchen, knocking on the door frame, to not scare his brother to death. He had to make sure, Lance understood this. And by the nodding he received at his story, he had enough reason to belief that perhaps, he could trust Lance in this.

Like a cat, Keith quietly sneaked into the room, as silent as possible, as he approached Shiro carefully.

“Hey, Shiro.”, he whispered. “Have you eaten?”, he asked as gentle as possible, stratling Shiro anyway. He already knew the answer. The plate, Keith had left that morning for him was still untouched.

Shiro looked up, tired and sad.  
Lance followed a few feet behind Keith, scared to interfere with the interaction. Keith had been right. Lance did understand the situation. 

“Did you sleep?”  
Shiro shook his head, slowly. Of all the people in this room, Shiro was the palest. Giving him a look that screamed of death. Ironic, if you recalled Lance´s current state of existence.

“Hey, Shiro, look at me. At least you made it out of bed. Come on. I´ll make us some pancakes. I know it´s a bit late for that, but you love them, right?  
Hurry up, go get a shower and put on some clothes or I´ll force you.”, Keith´s mockery was gentle and caring. His voice as soft and soothing as he managed to utter. Shiro nodded in silence.

Perhaps this was not the time to ask about the dent.

Keith led his brother up the stairs, as Lance waited in the kitchen, still staring at the prosthetic on the kitchen table. Heavy steps and noises of cracking wood told him how slowly they actually walked. Shiro must be quite the mess.

Then, the sound of rummaging and soon after, the sound of rushing water replaced the little tapping sound of their steps. It took Keith about half an hour to come back down.  
“He´ll be fine, I guess. He´s just living through that hell of his once more.”, he said as entered through the same door he left before.

Lance didn´t say anything to that, until he noticed Keith awkwardly standing around in the kitchen.  
A heavy silence settled between the two of them. 

“Didn´t you promise him some pancakes?”, Lance halfheartedly tried to break it.

“I did.” , Keith nodded, but awkwardly stood there anyway. 

“Dude, you can move. I mean, like, I´m not going to make the pancakes for you. You´re the medium here, you should at least to know how to cook.”

“What the hell do you think being a medium means, exactly? I can talk to ghosts! I mean, of course I can make pancakes, but I´m not a master chief. Would probably be more useful though.”, Keith rolled his eyes. But there was the sparkle of a smile in them that Lance could not quite ignore. It gave him reason to keep going, if only to keep the awkward silence at bay.

“Really? Have you ever tried anything but talking to ghosts? Like, cheat on a math test with an Ouija board or telekinesis like some kind of jedi?”, Lance grinned at his own joke, but as Keith hesitated to answer and went to the oven instead, he could not help but crack a grin.  
“Oh my god, you totally did!”

Keith blushed at that, as he threw the ingredients and tools he needed onto his workplace. Still, no response. Is that how he acted when he was embarrassed?

“No way, really?”, now the cackling had turned to full on laughter.  
“Oh, come on, shut up. I tried to curse Lotor once, because he spilled the beans that I´m a medium.”

The laughing quieted at that, then.  
“So, it´s true then. The two of you were friends.”  
“Yes, until he betrayed my trust.”, Keith spat at the memory. “Not, that you´d care.”

Now the ghost felt a bit bad.  
“You know, Lotor is a dick to everyone. He betrayed many people. He – well -  
Last week he – let´s just say I broke up with my girlfriend, because she cheated on me.”, he confessed. A bit embarrassed himself. Also uncertain whether or not it was a good idea to tell Keith. Then again, Keith had told him about Shiro´s, rather private, condition. 

Keith looked up at him, his eyes widened in surprise and regret. “Oh my god, I´m so sorry, I-”

“You don´t care, and you shouldn´t. It has nothing to do with you. That´s a decision she made. I´m just mad at Lotor, because we were about to become friends. I´m not wasting any tears for assholes like that myself either. Let´s forget about that.”  
So, perhaps it was not the best idea to confide in Keith about this.

Keith nodded in understanding. “You´re surprisingly mature, considering you usually act like a child around girls. I already wondered why you were flirting with Allura before. And here I thought, YOU were the cheating kind.”

Lance chuckled at that, relief settling at the attempted humor.  
“Yeah, people tend to believe that for some reason. I am actually really loyal though. Patient too, if I dare say so myself.  
I once waited two hours in a parking lot for Rolo to get his car to work.”

“Really?”, the incredulous glance he received by Keith was worth it, Lance decided, before continuing.  
“He never got it to work. Later that day I found out the car belonged to his boss, and he had tampered with it a bit. He basically broke the car and I was supposed to be his alibi.”, Lance smiled at the memory. Did it matter he altered the story a bit? Never mind.

“Wow, and there I thought you were a decent human being:”  
“Hey! I woke up Hunk in the middle of the night to go back and repair the thing, before anyone would find out. We fixed almost everything, except for the radio. We put a CD in that he had in his car and made it stuck on a song that I know he hates. I wonder why he even had that CD in the first place. I know for sure he does not listen to ABBA.  
Apparently it was enough to satisfy Rolo and not damage the car permanently. With Hunk on it, it probably never worked better than it does now.”

Keith stopped, as he cracked an egg open into a bowl.

“Wow, that´s impressive.”, he said, honesty in his voice. “Hunk, I mean.”, after contemplating his words.  
Lance laughed once more, as he sat down on one of the chairs. “Yeah, yeah he is.”  
Suddenly, sadness washed over Lance. “Hunk went back to his aunt in California last week. She´s sick, but lives alone. Someone has to take care of her – so - “, Lance sighed.

He could see Keith nodding, despite the fact he had his back turned to him now. 

“That explains, why Pidge and I haven´t seen him lately. I was wondering if he was sick or something.”, he said.

“Pidge? Oh, you mean Katie, right?”  
“Yes, of course.”, Keith nodded again.

Lance meddled with his fingers. Silence filled the room after that. They could hear the soft sound of the shower running. The silence was not exactly unsettling now, but it was no warm atmosphere either.

However, it gave Lance the chance to rethink the events of the past few days. And it dawned on him that he was in fact, dead. The thought felt dreading, heavy in his chest.  
Perhaps he should not have refused Allura. Perhaps he should not be here right now. 

He was here, sure, but he would never speak to Hunk again. His mom, his friends. Hell, even Nyma, despite everything. Or – Lotor.  
Lotor must be mad. But there was nothing he could do anymore.  
Lance was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small reminder that some of the character were never planned to be included but somehow Play the biggest roles in this Story now.  
> Everything is connected and everything does have a history. You´ll find out most of it through converstations. I did my best D:


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains homophobia and biphobia.  
> You have been warned.

When Shiro finally came back from his shower, Keith had managed to make some decent pancakes.  
His brother gave him a small smile and in Keith´s book that was a win.  
Lance had been quiet for the past few minutes, so Keith didn´t worry that they´d be disturbed. As little as he knew Lance, he granted him that much of his trust.  
Despite his initial belief, Lance was actually a decent human being, who knew when to keep his mouth shut. If he kept up his act, Keith may consider Lance´s claim about loyalty and patience believable. At least a little.

His bigger concern should probably be Shiro.  
Because it was time for Keith to ask the question that had bugged him all day. And that, as he forgot, was a dangerous topic. Especially as a conversation starter. 

Not to mention there were certain things Shiro may or may not say that Keith certainly wanted left unsaid. For Shiro´s and his own benefit. But how could he ever warn his brother that an unwanted witness was in the room, without giving away his ghost issue? He couldn´t think of anything. He had to hope for the best. And the thought alone worried Keith. It send shivers down his spine.

“Say Shiro-”, Keith started slowly. Shiro had barely begun eating, but he looked a lot better than before.  
He wore actual pyjamas. And the worn off slippers he only ever wore when he felt sad. A soft purple blanket was wrapped around his shoulders to keep him comfortable and warm.

“Yeah?”  
“You had an accident, didn´t you?” Keith faintly noticed Lance looking up at that. “Last night.”, he clarified.  
Shiro didn´t reply. He was caught off guard, but guilt and slight panic settled on his face. Keith already regretted mentioning it.  
“I saw the dent in your car. And I know for sure it wasn´t there on friday.”

Shiro swallowed down the bite he just took and put down his fork.  
“Yeah, I did.”, he stuttered, avoiding Keith´s pointed look. “I ran over some animal. It wasn´t dead though. It jumped to it´s feet and ran off. I was distracted, because you know.” Shiro looked to the ground like a kicked puppy. Lance opened his mouth to say something, but shut it right away. Keith made a mental note to ask him about that later.

“Shiro, you should know that I´m not mad. It´s just a dent. Why didn´t you tell me?” Keith tried to keep his voice down, calm, to not frighten his brother. Shiro was startled easily.

“I had an anxiety attack because of it, I didn´t want to worry you.”, Shiro murmured.   
Keith relaxed a bit, glancing at Lance, if only to look somewhere else than his brother. Lance was biting his lip. Maybe he should leave. This was not something he should intrude in.  
But in a strange way, Keith was glad he stayed. He couldn´t handle Shiro all by himself. At least not mentally. Even if Lance was the promise of eternal verbal torture.

“You know I want you to worry me, Shiro. You´ve always been there for me, ever since we were kids. For once, let me return the favor.”

Shiro smiled again, almost laughed a little. “I think my PTSD is not exactly the same as a visit to a mental hospital for the use of necromancy, Keith.”  
Keith tried not to see Lance´s eyes widening as Shiro mentioned the hospital. First thing he didn´t want Lance to know. Great, of course.  
“Perhaps you´re right. We see different ghosts.”, Keith murmured, his smile faltering.

Shiro raised an eyebrow at that. “You´re seeing them again?”, he asked. Oh, well fuck.  
Keith´s eyes flung to Lance, who raised in his stance in confusion.   
“No, not anymore. I only see them in my dreams sometimes.”, he slowly replied.

“Oh, ok. I´m glad. I don´t think I could take it, if you had to go back to that place. You´re all I have, since – you know, Adam broke up with me.” Sadness washed over Shiro´s face.   
Keith went pale at that.  
Not only had Shiro just told him, he´d sent him away if he talked to him about the ghosts, he just mentioned Adam´s name. 

He saw Lance jump to his feet at that, eyes wide, as he stumbled forward to the door.  
,Well that´s a good sign.´, Keith thought to himself.   
“I-”, Lance started, as he passed by Keith. “I should wait upstairs. This is – “ He didn´t finish his sentence. Keith just knew, Lance would either call him out for whatever that was later or not even be in his room at all. 

But Keith had more important things to take care of right now than the disturbed ego of a dead homophobic. He sighed as he knew there was no point in going after Lance now.  
Shiro was and always would be his first priority. So he focused his attention back to his crumbling brother. Trying his best to comfort him.

\----------------------------

Lance went upstairs, lightheaded. He felt like he had just invaded a private conversation. Which he had, of course.  
Keith was considered mental by many people, but by Shiro? His own brother would lock him away if he had to? And to top it all of:  
Shiro was gay. He was actually -  
Lance let himself fall on to what appeared to be Keith´s bed. At least according to the posters of mothman on the walls. Keith seemed the type.   
Lance stared at the ceiling, trying to calm himself from the news. Until he realized that perhaps, to Keith he must have looked like a total disaster. Keith didn´t seem surprised by his reaction, according to the lack of emotion in his expression. Did he know? Anyway.

His eyes drifted elsewhere, just like his mind. Until something else got his attention. A book on the bedside table.   
Curious and slightly desperate for a distraction, Lance took it into his hands and opened it.   
But, before he could see anything interesting, darkness washed over the room. Causing him to sit up again.

Next to the door stood Allura. Her hand - on the light switch.  
Lance looked at her, noticing the glowing of her outlines and suddenly he was reminded that she was dead, too.  
This is what Keith saw all the time? It was kind of beautiful to look at, really.

“Hey, how come you can turn on the light? Can all ghosts do that?”, he asked, remembering how he had stumbled through a tree. Back, when his spirit had parted from his body.

“Yeah, no. It´s a skill only good willed ghosts can achieve. It takes practice. Lots of practice. Which is why I wanted to ask you something.”

“What is it?”, Lance asked.   
Allura gave him a look.  
“You´re literally holding a sketchbook right now. A physical object. And you didn´t even notice you´re doing it.”, she deadpanned. Curiosity, but also jealousy in her eyes. He could tell she was impressed.

“I-”, Lance looked at the book in his hand. It was true, it was a sketchbook. And according to the name on the first page, it belonged to Keith. The first page, which he had opened before was a simple sketch of a puppy.   
But Lance also noticed his own hands holding it. His own, glowing hands. It was true, he hadn´t even noticed. He just went along with everything that came to him. And moving things felt just – familiar somehow. Natural. Should it not be like this?

“How did you do it?”, she asked as she moved over and tried to flip a page. The first time she touched the page, her hand went right through it. The second time she barely managed to grab the paper.

“I have no idea.”, Lance admitted. Allura did not press, just sat down next to him in thought. 

That was , when a thought struck Lance.  
“Actually, I wanted to ask you something too. Before he comes up that is. “, Lance nudged his head at the wooden door that lead downstairs.

“ It´s kind of a personal question.”, he paused. “You´re a ghost, right?”, he waited another second for a response that never came. But the obvious question mark in her eyes was enough of an answer.

“Why are you still here? I mean, I get it, someone has to help people to move on to the after life. But why are you helping Keith?”

Allura sighed at that. “I´m not helping him. Actually, it´s the other way around. Leading people to the other side is my job. But I have trouble talking to living. Keith is the only medium I´ve found who could help me. Even though his methods are – well, let´s say insensitive at times.”, she finally sat down next to him. She paused, as if considering to tell him more.

“Also, I do not want to do this job forever.”, she self consciously ran her fingers through her hair. She reached up her hand, only to let it fall down again. There was only so much she could reveal. And this was not the time to go into too much detail.

Lance looked up on her head, to find out what she was trying to touch, but only noticed the diadem that made him want to call her princess. Of course, the white hair already gave her that all knowing, all mighty aura that threw him off a little. 

“You want Keith as your successor?”, Lance asked, almost in a whisper. Allura nodded. 

“Yes. One day, I want to move on to the next life. But I doubt Keith will ever accept this job. It is a long one. You know, in my position you can stretch time for yourself. In the living world, I´ve died ten years ago. And I aged accordingly, even though I haven´t found out why yet.  
However, I feel like I´ve been around at least a thousand times that long.” She sighed. Her voice was strained and tired. And Lance believed her instantly.

He nodded. “I get what you mean. At least, I think I do.”  
Allura smiled at him. “It´s weird. I´ve never talked to another ghost about this before.”, she admitted. Lance pat her shoulder at that.

“It´s alright. You can´t always keep everything for yourself. I´m honored you trust me enough to tell me so much. Talking heals all wounds, I always say. Said? Which is it now?”

Allura chuckled at that. “I cannot believe you are like this. This kind I mean. I would have expected you to be a lot more angry or something?`After I´ve seen how you died-”, she stopped herself as heavy steps approached at the door.

“Please don´t tell him.”, Lance´s eyes widened a bit.  
“Don´t worry. I´d never interfere with the wishes of the decended. That is not my job. I can only lead you, if you let me. You will have to come to me.”  
“Thank you, princess.”, he sighed. A moment later, she was gone. 

If Lance wasn´t a ghost himself, he would not have been surprised to see her disappear. Well, if he was a medium himself and could see ghosts like Keith did. Then again, he was no medium.   
Perhaps he shouldn´t dwell on this thought too much.  
Especially, since a second later, Keith stepped in, eyes filled with fury. 

\-------------------------

 

“What the hell Lance?!”, he hissed. So, Shiro must have gone to sleep then.

“What do you mean?”, he asked, honestly confused.

“What I – Lance, you stormed out the room the moment Shiro mentioned Adam.”  
Oh, right. That.

“Adam is his fiancé, right? Or rather, ex – fiancé. I thought it wasn´t my place to stay there, because-”, Lance started explaining, but of course, Keith was an overprotective little brother who would never listen. At least not to the likes of Lance.

“Oh come on, cut the crap with me. I´ve seen people react to their relationship before!  
I know an asshole, when I see one.  
Just because he´s gay, that doesn´t mean you have a right to judge him -”

“Keith, listen-”, again, Keith didn´t let him.

“Just so you know, if you´re that disgusted by gay people that you cannot even stand being in the same room with them, you should probably leave, because newsflash, I am gay too!”  
Keith was out of breath as he finished his last sentence. 

Mere seconds later, horror distinguished the fire in his eyes. Leaving nothing but instant regret and a silence so heavy, you could cut it with a spoon. You heard me, a spoon.

Lance looked at him, as calm as possible. Because he knew how Keith must feel right now. As he scanned him with his own dead eyes, he could see Keith shivering, anxiety creeping up his pale neck, filling his determined eyes with doubt. But he seemed prepared.  
Lance was a ghost, what could he possibly do to him?

“I´m bi, Keith.”, Lance firmly stated.

Keith blinked. Once, twice, but his posture relaxed.  
“Huh?”, he asked, incredulous.

“Yeah, surprise, I guess.”, he shrugged. Because, again, Lance was a ghost. What could anyone possibly do to him?

“But, don´t you have a girlfriend?”, Keith asked, as though his brain couldn´t comprehend anything anymore at this point.

“First of all, had. Second of all, what do you expect bi means? I like girls and guys. Man, and you called ME homophobic.”, Lance grinned.  
“Sorry, I just-”

“You didn´t expect it, I get it. Most people don´t. Or, I guess they don´t. I never really told anyone but Hunk.”

“Huh-”, Keith repeated his very intelligent answer from before.  
“Then, ehm. May I ask why you stormed out, when Shiro mentioned Adam?”

Lance chuckled at that. “It´s just-”, he sighed. “I never came out to anyone before. I couldn´t, or so I thought. I guess, my family always knew. At least my mom does. But I never really talked about it with her. She wouldn´t understand.   
Now I know, I could have talked to Shiro. Of all people, Takashi f*cking Shirogane. Well, you too, I suppose. Not that it matters now.

You know, my moms boyfriend has been talking shit about gays and bisexuals for weeks now. Since this pride event started downtown. I never got the chance to attend, though. If I had, I guess I wouldn´t be here now. You know, dead.

Keith still just stared at him, until he forced his gaze somewhere else.

“I -”, Keith stopped himself.   
“Don´t apologize to me. You´ve faced just as much shit as I have. If not more, I think. I didn´t know this ghost seeing thing was that big of a deal to you.”, Lance shrugged with an apologetic smile on his lips.

Keith looked at him once more. He considered his next move, his next words. They were important.  
“You´re right. Still, I should not have lashed out on you.”  
“You were thinking of your brother, I understand.”  
“Still, how can I make this up to you?”  
“There´s nothing to make up.”   
“How about I help you move to the afterlife.”, Keith finally said, wondering where the sudden motivation came from.

“What?”

“Yeah. I think, at the very least, we should go and search for your body. Unless someone already found it. Then again, the police station is not that far from here and I haven´t heard anything since Saturday morning. Can you tell me where your corpse is?”, Keith asked carefully.

Lance waited a second, before he answered. There was hesitation in his voice, still he sounded firm as he answered. “I can´t. I don´t remember how I died.”

Keith´s face fell. “Oh.”, was all he said. “Okay. Is . Is that the reason you´re still here?”  
Again, hesitation.   
“I-” Lance faltered, unable to form a coherent sentence. So, Keith decided to change the topic. Lance had a right to keep some secrets too, after all.

“It´s fine. It´s your business and it´s private, I get it. I won´t ask again. “  
Keith nodded then, looking at his watch. He could feel Lance´s eyes following his own, but ignored it either way.  
“Would it – ehm, would it be okay if I went to sleep now? It´s been a long day. And I couldn´t sleep at all last night. And all this talking kind of stressed me out...”

Lance gently smiled in understanding and nodded. Until he realized he was still sitting on Keith´s bed, while Keith stood there, probably wanting to change or something.  
“Yeah, ehm, I´ll go downstairs.”, he said. After all, he was not tired. Perhaps ghosts didn´t need to sleep. Keith thankfully shoved him out the door. Or rather waited until the spirit left.

True to his word, Lance went downstairs, the sketchbook still in his hand. Keith may not have noticed. Should he return it? But turning back now would probably seem weird. Or be weird. Considering that Keith was about to change when he left.

Well – at least he´d have something to do now, right?  
And so he sat down on the next couch and started flipping through pages and pages of scribbled sketches. For once, he didn´t feel pressured to rush himself for anything, so he tried to read every line Keith sometime put here and there. Complimenting or criticizing, sometimes even joking about his own lines. It made Lance smile inwardly. Was it even wise to do this? Sketchbooks were as good as diaries and Lance was certain he didn´t want anyone to read those.

On the other hand -

Had Keith more of those upstairs? They were very entertaining. It´d have to wait until morning, though. Lance sighed. Keith was actually not that bad of a guy. Except for his ridiculous hair style of course.

Maybe he had done Keith unjust those past few years in school.   
Now that he knew for certain Keith was no lying attention whore. As many believed.   
He didn´t blame them. I mean, seeing ghosts? That was as absurd as it was bizarre.  
Still. With the way Keith acted around his brother and all that. If he was like that to everyone he cared about. Let´s just say Lance kind of wanted Keith to care.

\-----------

A scratching noise arose his attention in the middle of the night. What was this? Who was this? Was someone trying to break in? But scratching the door? And this loud too?  
Lance hesitated. He was a ghost right? What was he afraid of? He should go and inspect this noise.

He took a deep breath and went for the door.   
Finally, he put his head (literally) through the door.   
Giant, yellow eyes pierced into his.  
“Holy freaking -”, he murmured. First of all, what kind of dog had yellow eyes? Second of all, could the dog actually see him?

Lance hesitated once more, as he carefully reached for the dog tag at the dog´s colar. “Kosmo?”, he read out loud.  
The dog barked and Lance stepped back for a second in surprise.   
Then, he could only see dark brown wood. Well, he stepped back into the door, didn´t he? To think this was like a glitch in a video game, Lance almost laughed.

A moment later he decided to further inspect the dog tag. Lance took a deep, reassuring breath and stepped back through the door.  
If only to inspect the dog tag again. An address was written in it and the dog held still for him.  
Since when were dogs this calm? In fine, curvy letters, the address of this house was written on it. Did this Kosmo dog belong to Keith?

Seemed like it, so Lance opened the door. Happily, the dog tapped inside, shaking himself and running of to a small blanket that lay somewhere on the floor. Lance had not noticed it before.

Kosmo walked in a circle, until he finally lay down. Once again, he barked at Lance, then closed his eyes. 

Lance blinked. What an odd way to get introduced to a dog, he thought. 

\------------------

 

Keith woke up to the rising sun throwing darts of light into his room. And for a blissful moment, he forgot everything that had happened the day before.  
Only a minute later though, it returned with a heavy crash of shame and embarrassment.  
Had he actually outed himself in front of Lance? Sure he was a ghost, but still. Keith never came out to anyone before.  
Also, had he accidentally questioned Lance´s sexuality?

The initial relief of the fact that Lance reacted so calmly evaded soon enough, as shame settled in again. Of course he knew what bisexual meant. He had just – never met someone before who granted themselves with that title.   
Everyone he knew where either straight or gay. Anything in between was always ignored by the masses.   
Sometimes even denied they existed. When had Keith gotten so indulged in society´s bullshit, that he had acted so inappropriately. No matter what Lance said. It was not ok to just go around and assume -  
He groaned into his pillow. 

Unwillingly, he stood up to take a much needed shower and put on some clothes. 

His thoughts however, stayed with Lance for the moment.

You see, Keith did, in fact, read many stories of ghosts. He remembered them as creepy spirits with absolutely no sense of privacy.  
And up to this point, he´d only ever met spirits who met his expectations in that regard. Lance however, Lance was weirdly different.  
Keith could have sworn, after watching him so many times in school, he´d know everything about him. Turns out, Lance was full of surprises.

Lance had not disturbed him in his sleep once. And that despite his loud and usually obnoxious personality.  
For a single moment, Keith wondered, why exactly Lance was so loud, when he just proved, he could be considerate.  
In that instant, Keith felt a faint feeling of dread creeping up his spine. He was never this interested in a ghost. He did not like that.

Then again, Lance was probably the last person he had ever expected to even be interested in pride. It gave him a weird sense of hope. For what exactly, Keith was not sure.

More than that, it was the fact that Lance seemed so open, so trusting, but also trustworthy that made him wonder, if it was a good idea to let him stick so close to him.   
After all, all ghosts moved on eventually.

A sadness washed over Keith, leaving nothing but a hollow feeling inside.  
To Keith, people never died. They just left.   
And he couldn´t let a stranger into his life, whom he knew would disappear sooner of later. ,Rather sooner than later´ his paranoid mind pointed.

Lance was dead for barely a day. Most ghosts stayed for only a short while. Two or three days were the maximum of days Keith ever dealt with a ghost. At least one that Allura assigned to him.  
His mother was the obvious exception.

Keith put on the first clean pair of jeans and shirt he could find and went downstairs, hair uncombed, while his bag already waited at the door.  
Shit, he forgot about homework. And – no way, was Kosmo still outside? The thought was interrupted, as soon as he saw the sleeping form of his best friend (aside from Pidge, obviously) on his blanket. For some reason, Kosmo loved that blanket.   
Keith sighed. Perhaps Shiro woke up in the middle of the night again and let him in.

Anyway. Right now, Shiro was asleep, just like the day before. Keith didn´t have it in him to wake his brother, but for a brief second, he wondered if he should just skip school today too.  
He had plans for today after all. He was supposed to find Lance´s body, right?

“Don´t even think about skipping school.” Keith jumped at the sudden voice behind him.  
As he turned around, he saw Lance standing there, arms crossed, as he leaned on the door frame.

“I wasn´t.”, Keith lied. Was Lance a psychic? Wait, why did he lie again? He didn´t have to explain himself to this ghost.

“Good. Because I´m pretty sure your brother would be disappointed.”

“But – Lance, there are more important things than school.”  
“For example?”, Lance cracked a cocky grin.

„For example-“, Keith pressed, “your body.” In hindsight, Keith should have been more careful with his words.

“Geez, Keith. At least by me a drink first.”, he joked, winking at him suggestively. And Keith? Keith gaped. It was way too early for this. And yet, he found himself blushing. If in embarrassment or shame, Keith was yet uncertain.  
So much for Lance´s good reacting at his coming out. Great.

Keith sighed, face still hot. He didn´t notice how the sight of his blushing face made Lance face flush as well.

“Right, because liquids don´t just run through you or anything.”, he murmured, causing Lance to laugh.  
“Dude, that´s not making it better.”  
“What?”, Keith asked, now lost.   
“Just- well nevermind. Still. You´re going to school. You have your whole future ahead of you. Do what you can. God now I sound old.”

“Not as old as Shiro does. Speaking of which. I cannot leave him alone again. What if he´s going to hurt himself? He has depression, you know!”, Keith retorted, his voice stronger this time. Thank the heavens his voice was always deeper in the morning. 

“I´ll watch him, while you´re gone. There is no reason for me to keep going to school. My career is over anyway.”

“And what can you do, if he does hurt himself?”, Keith asked, suspicious, trying to ignore the hints that Lance kept lashing out at his own death.

“Obviously, I´ll let you know immediately. Also, Allura told me I was exceptional at moving objects or something. I´ll just throw a book at him or something.”, Lance shrugged.  
Keith opened his mouth, but a memory struck him. “You shoved me yesterday.”, he remembered.  
Lance cracked a smile. “See? I can do this. Nothing to worry about.”

Keith sighed, as he finally moved to the fridge to make some breakfast for him and later – for Shiro.  
“Fine. I´ll trust you. But I swear to god, if he misses one hair, when I come back -”, the threat was lost in the laugh that erupted from the spirit.

“I´ll count them to make sure.”, he winked. Again, it made Keith flush. “buy my a drink first.”. Keith flushed a bit, but ignored it for his own benefit. No guy had ever flirted with him but Lance just kept doing it? If he continued to do so, Keith was not sure, if he would survive the next few days.

“Alright then. But don´t touch my stuff. Or Shiro´s. Or anyone´s.   
Just, I don´t know, read or – I don´t know, keep an eye out for him.”

“Aye, Sir.”, Lance saluted. Saluted. Keith snorted. “See you later, dork.”, he said, grabbed his lunch and left. The only sound that remained were the keys turning at the door.

Lance looked after him, a smile still remaining on his face.  
He really should have talked to Keith before he died. Maybe they could have been good friends. Not that he´d ever believed Keith´s ghost stories.   
Lance sighed. Maybe he could at least have listened to them. 

When he turned around though, he froze in surprise as he was met with a far too familiar face.  
Then again, Shiro could not see him, right?

“He lied to me.”, Shiro whispered. And for a moment Lance questioned what Shiro meant by that. Until he remembered that Shiro could not hear him either.  
He was referring to – oh no.   
Shiro had listened to Keith talk. To Lance. To no one. Oh no no no no no.

“I have to call someone.” Shiro was pale. His face looked more like ash than human and the scar on his nose was even more prominent now. And, did Shiro get even more white strains in his hair, like, overnight?

A moment later, Shiro already went towards the telephone and Lance, alarmed as he was, could only make out one reason why. Shiro was calling a doctor. Or rather, the medical facility he mentioned the day before.  
What should Lance do? They´d probably ask Keith a lot of stupid questions, if they didn´t declare him a mental case and closed him away for good.

In a split second, an idea crossed his mind. Perhaps it was the lack of a physical body, but Lance found himself thinking and moving faster than he ever had in his life.   
In the living room, on the couch it remained Keith´s sketchbook that Lance had looked through all night.  
He grabbed it without a second thought and put it on the counter in the kitchen, right next to the telephone. Despite his initial idea to, perhaps, just wave it in front of Shiro´s face, he decided against it. Shiro would probably freak out even more. Declaring himself mental and calling himself in for therapy. Keith would kill Lance if that happened.

The phone was in an old retro design, hanging on the wall. It wasn´t a mobile phone you could walk around with. Which came in Lance´s favor, because it bought him some time to map out his plan.

Lance pulled out the small bookmark Keith had left in a random page and put it on top of the book.  
Shiro who was walking way slower than Lance ran, passed the counter hesitantly. Lance felt nervous sweat running down his spine. It may be a phantom feeling, but it was a warning sign. Shiro would probably not even notice the book, unless -   
Lance moved the book.   
He knew, human eyes were trained to notice any kind of movement. Shiro may think of the moving book as his own imagination and would not think of himself as crazy. But, he would notice it, so Lance hoped.

His trick worked. Shiro turned around and stopped in his tracks. Slowly, he moved towards the sketchbook and reached for the bookmark.  
The bookmark was an old piece of paper that someone had covered in invisible tape. Perhaps to save it from wearing of.  
There was a drawing on it.   
A boy in a red jacket next to a giant man.

Keith must have drawn this picture before Shiro had lost his arm. Perhaps even before he met Adam. A rather new drawing had been added onto the tape, probably years later. Lance knew this must be Kosmo. Keith was rather skilled, he had to admit.  
Written in giant red letters stood: 

“Family is found on trust, not on blood.”

Shiro stood there for a couple of moments, while Lance watched him.   
Carefully waiting for how he´d react. A small, painful smile was plastered on Shiro´s face.  
Memories, invisible to Lance, crossed his mind. A sigh marked the end of Shiro´s internal struggle and he put down the bookmark. But he also turned away from the phone.

“Mission accomplished.”, Lance murmured to himself, as his nerves finally calmed down and a wave of admiration for Keith washed over him. Thankful for the small piece of paper that had just saved his butt.  
And if he didn´t know better, he would have sworn he saw Shiro flinch at the sudden noise.

\--------------------------------

Keith would love to be anywhere but in school today. 

Especially, since Nyma, Rolo and their various friend group had decided to be a bunch of assholes again.

It all began, when Keith had decided to finally get the stick out of his ass and actually move over to them.  
Of course, his timing could not have been worse.

“You actually pulled that on him, Nyma? Nice.”, Rolo commented on something Nyma had explained before. At this point, Keith did not care yet. He wanted to talk to Nyma about where she thought Lance may be. He did not really want to drop the whole death bomb on her. Emphasis on wanted, to be fair.

“What can I say? Lance is a sap. Sweet, sure. But soooo boring and way too romantic.”, Nyma rolled her eyes.  
“Still, Lotor? That guy is a player, Nyma. You know that.”  
“Who says I wasn´t playing, too.”, Nyma wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and people began whistling as they listened in on the popular kids talking.

Rolo laughed. It sounded more like a bark than anything.   
“Well – Can´t say I blame you. I met up with Lance sometime last week. I honestly went out of my way to make him break down his asshole step dads car. And after all the time I spend on it, the guy went and called Hunk to fix it.I can´t believe that guy.”

“You broke Sendak´s car for him?”, Nyma seemed impressed. “Wow, doesn´t that guy own a company? I mean, he designs school yards, buildings and playgrounds and stuff, right?”, she o´ed.  
“Man, I don´t get it. He never let me come to his house. I´ve met his mom, she´s as much of an angel as Hunk is.”

“Perhaps he was afraid, he´d came across as too soft.”, Rolo laughed. “You know, because his make up thing isn´t weird enough.”

Nyma nodded her head in eager agreement. “Yeah right?! I mean, I kind of respect him for that. If I was a guy, I would never dare to do that.”

Keith had stopped in his tracks. This was not what he had expected. Then again, people gossiped all the time. Maybe he should have.

“I bet he actually has a thing for guys or something.”, Rolo joked and caused Keith to freeze.  
“No way, you mean I was his alibi or something?”, Nyma looked at her friend incredulously.  
“Nah, I don´t think so. Who wouldn´t be swept off his feet by you.” Rolo moved in a bit closer to her and kissed her on the nose.

“You just say that, because you have to, being my new boyfriend and all.”, she laughed. “Though, I wouldn´t mind a gay best friend.” Rolo raised an eyebrow at that.  
“What? Doesn´t every girl?”

Keith had heard enough. He already had a hard time, reminding himself that patience yields focus. He had an important task. This toxic conversation shouldn´t distract him as much as it did.

He moved closer, finally being seen by the popular kids. Nyma was the first to notice him.

“Oh, look who´s here. The ghost kid. What? Finally recognized that I am still alive and can totally see you? Take a picture and wait in line like any sane guy.”  
Keith didn´t even flinch.

“I´m sorry, but I don´t think that´s how seeing and talking to ghosts work. And I am actually here to ask you, if you´ve seen Lance.”  
His expression never changed, during the whole introduction. Nyma raised an eyebrow.

“How would I know? I haven´t seen him since Friday in school. Where he avoided me. He saw me with Lotor last week, I think. He probably ran off somewhere to cry or something.”, she shrugged her shoulders.  
Keith´s eye twitched.

“Wait, he actually saw you guys? No wonder he´s not responding to my texts. I think you broke him.”, Rolo nudged her shoulder as he laughed at her.  
Keith took a deep breath.

“Do you know where he usually goes to, when he ,runs off to cry´”, Keith made sure to use air quotes. Not to be accurate, but to at least not feel this dread of guilt when he repeated her hurtful words.

Rolo smirked at that. “What was that?. Are you concerned about him? What now, a ghost told you he´d seen him weep somewhere?”  
“Don´t mock him, Rolo. I think Keithy-boy here has a crush on Lancey Lance.”, Nyma fake gaped at him.   
Keith wanted to say something, but held himself back, which probably was not his best decision.

“O.M.G. Did you just see that? That was practically a confession. Keithy-boy here is a fag!”, she dragged the last word on.  
But for some reason, it didn´t have the effect on Keith that he always anticipated it´d may have, if his sexuality was ever made known or openly questioned.  
In fact, it calmed him down for some reason.

“Actually, the ghost who informed me of Lance´s absence happens to be your ex himself. But apparently it doesn´t concern you at all.”, Keith said. Ok, perhaps he was actually furious.

Nyma raised her eyebrows in confusion as she exchanged a glance with Rolo.  
“Wait- “, she laughed. “You seriously want to tell me, Lance is dead?”, she asked, clearly doubting every word he just said.  
“Don´t stretch it, Nyma. This guy is either mental or wants to guilt trip you.”

Keith sighed, trying not to shiver too much from the desperate attempt not to punch at least one of them in their faces.

“No, Rolo. Wait. I want to hear this. You think Lance, I don´t know, killed himself or something because of me? If you really think that, then you don´t know Lance at all!”, she stepped closer, fury a flame in her eyes. 

Keith bit back an insult. For one, because a fight was the last thing he wanted right now. The other was that he had a feeling that Nyma was hiding something. Perhaps even lying about something. Her eyes looked hurt, if Keith dared to read them correctly. Perhaps it was true, eyes were the window to your soul. Maybe this was the true Nyma he saw just now? Maybe his ability to see ghosts granted him to see her true self?  
Because on the inside, he saw a cornered animal, not the roaring beast she put on display.

Anyway, he answered as calmly as he could.  
“I did not suggest he killed himself. And yes, I do not know him that well. All I know is that he´s dead and I wanted to know where I could find his body. That is all.”, Keith told the truth. Because he was an idiot like that.

Nyma growled at him, but didn´t respond. She looked Keith clearly into his eyes.   
“I wouldn´t know where he´d go.”, she slowly answered. Keith waited a second for perhaps a bit more of an answer, but nothing ever came. He knew she was lying.

“Good. Thank you for listening to me then.” Keith´s knuckles were already white from his own grip, his left arm would probably be full of bruises tomorrow.

“No problem. Now go and get your brain checked, weirdo.”, she hissed through gritted teeth.   
Keith nodded as his lip started bleeding as he bit into them.  
The nonverbal war between them stretched in silence. It was Keith who broke it off.   
He knew Lance would not want this.   
And Lance seemed capable of keeping his own pride and dignity in check for himself either way.

But he could not hold back a threatening “I´ll tell him what I´ve heard from you though.”. Of course it never had the impact that he´d intended it to have.   
All he received was laughter. But now at least he knew it was worthless to confide in them.  
The last thing he heard Rolo say was “if he could talk to Lance, why doesn´t he ask his ghost were the body is. What an idiot.”

The school bell cut off every attempt of a comback. Keith swore, if the bell did not exist, there would probably be one more ghost for him to take care already.

\------------------------------

Nyma lied. Because Nyma was a notorious liar.  
School was over. And like usual, it had been a long day. Rolo went home already. And yeah, Rolo was a great guy, but Nyma felt bad.  
Like, really bad. Because cheating on Lance had never been her intention.

She gripped her jacket tightly, as she watched the leafs of the forest waver in the wind. She had felt so bad, when Lance ignored her on Friday.  
But she understood why he had done it.

After all, he went in on her and Lotor.   
Nyma exhaled a deep breath at the memory. Fucking Lotor. 

Nyma felt ashamed. She did then and she does now. Lance had told her, he needed some time, to at least restore their friendship and she had hoped he could forgive her one day.  
But when he didn´t even turn up at school today – well, needless to say she was a bit mad.  
He could at least face her, right?

On the other hand, she couldn´t even look at herself in the mirror anymore.  
Her boasting earlier was a sad excuse of a facade. 

She remembered how Lance had tried helping her, barely minutes before she had gone of with Lotor. He´d told her, he would pay her debts for her, if she asked. He would have stolen the money from his step dad, until she could pay him back, if he so must. He would work to repay Sendak, too.  
He said, it would be fine.  
As long as she started talking to him. Or went to therapy. Because, he said, depression was a serious matter and worth more than all the money it cost.   
She´d be worth it, the stress and pain, he said.

But, Alcohol was cheaper than therapy, Nyma had decided.  
And that was a decision she had made when she was only fourteen and her parents had just begun fighting. Now that their marriage was about to end, she had been relieved.  
On the other hand, she had not noticed how her debts had gone up.

And then? Then Lotor made that offer. And she fucking accepted. It made her sick. Ever since then, only mad decisions and insults had left her mouth.   
It was like Lotor was the plague and anyone he kissed would carry on his lies.

She remembered how hurt Lance looked at her. And she remembers how mad he was at Lotor for even offering her such a futile deal.  
He almost punched Lotor and shouted at him. “You should be ashamed of yourself. “  
Lotor went bitter at that. He even spat at Lance.  
Nyma was frozen in place at the exchange, as the ruckus caused Lotor´s parents to see what was going on.

Just when Lance saw the woman, he told her. “I am so sorry, you had to see that. But your son is a horrible human being.”

Lotor, who had almost been calm before, saw red. “She´s not my mother, you stupid idiot!”  
Nyma did not know what happened then. She must have followed Lance outside, but he disappeared somewhere in the distance. Minutes later she got a text that said: “I think I need a break. From this, from you. I am mad. I really am. I need time. Please understand.”

Nyma had cried then. All through Thursday night and Friday morning, when Lance ignored her. And of course, the rest of the whole cursed weekend.

Right now, she was at the brink of crying again. Lance was still gone. And it was true. That one message was the last she ever got and even Rolo had not heard of him ever since.  
Then and there, she made the decision to wait only one more day. Then she´d ask Rolo to help her find him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don´t get me wrong, I am not fond of Nyma. I just figured, she needed an actual reason to be mean and this Story made more sense to me than her just being the "cheating bitch". So, simple solution, I made her an alcohol addict.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, beware. Homophobic and biphobic concerns.  
> Also, Everyone cries a lot. Meh, it´s only getting worse from here on out.

Keith searched almost every place he could think of in the city. Allura and Lance were both of no help, since neither of them had a clue were to find Lance´s body. Not to mention, he didn´t want Lance to think he actually cared much to find him.  
So Keith tried to recall every place he ever saw Lance hang out. Which were, to be fair, quite a lot of places.

Lance had always been the kind of person who knew everything about everyone. Every person Keith asked, seemed to know the quirky, outgoing version of Lance. Except, not really know him aside from his name and his ability to listen. Which was news to Keith.  
Every single one of them told them how Lance had helped them with something. Somewhere, some time ago. Aside from that, nothing.  
Not even how old he was. His favorite place to hang out, not even what kind of music he liked.

That was, why it did not come as a surprise to Keith, that nobody had seen him for at least a few days.

When Keith checked out like the fifth disco in town, after searching in at least three different bakeries, talking to at least six of Lance´s “bestest of friends” whose name Keith didn´t even remember and two parks, he was done.  
It wouldn´t be so difficult, if a) Lance wasn´t so popular, b), people actually seemed to care about Lance and not themselves and c) those places were not marked over the whole town.

Keith sighed, as he turned up the engine of his motorcycle.  
Perhaps he should just ask Pi- Great.  
Why did he not think of that first? Pidge. She knew Hunk, Lance´s actual best friend. They should have an idea where to find the body. 

She was probably working on her IT- project right now.  
Her IT project, called Chip, was a robot she was working on even after school. With similar mechanisms as Shiro´s prosthetic, which she invented. She tried to finish the project for some sort of nerd contest. Meaning, she would be very annoyed, moody and tired, when he´d interrupt her.  
With a groan, Keith made his way back to school, where he knew Pidge would be.

 

\----------------

Pidge was hyper focused. She couldn´t remember going home on Monday, or sleeping, or eating. But she knew how far she´d improved on Chip.  
And because she was so focused, she didn´t look on her phone either.  
When Keith suddenly crashed through the door, she actually fell over at the sudden noise.

“Keith, what the actual fuck!”, she screamed.  
“Pidge, I – wow you look horrible.”, he said, eyebrows raised as he stopped in the middle of his sentence.  
“Yeah no shit. I haven´t left this room like since, I dunno, yesterday was Sunday right?”  
“It´s Tuesday. Like, 6pm Tuesday”, Keith gaped.

“Oh fuck and I thought my progress was great. I´m lightyears behind.”  
“You do know that´s not a time digit, right?”  
“Holy shit and~ I´m delirious. Hurry up, Keith! Get me some coffee!”

Keith eyed the room. Her coffee mug looked like she´d drunken from it the whole past two days. Papers were lying around everywhere and Pidge was hurrying from one place to the other. Not to mention all the coffee stains on her shirt and mentioned paper. She must have spilled it over at some point. Perhaps more than once.  
“This would be so much easier with Hunk around.”

Keith hesitated at the comment, before he coughed and finally managed to bring out his question.  
“About that. Can you do me a favor?”  
“When are you not asking for a favor. Spill it, before I make you.”, she threatened, already back at what appeared to be a giant eye-camera-hybrid-thingy. With a screwdriver. Great, now she was armed.

“I need you to ask Hunk where Lance is. Or rather, could be. Since Hunk is out of town and probably wouldn´t know where -”  
Pidge did not stop with her work, though Keith would not have expected her to anyway. But she interrupted him.

“Since when are you interested in Lance? First Friday, because he looked sad and now today, because you couldn´t stalk him? Excuse me, ,look at him from afar´?”

Keith took a deep breath.  
“Please, Pidge. I wouldn´t be here, if it wasn´t important.”  
“Oh come on, Keith.”, she looked up. “What could be so important about Lance fucking McClain, that you have to disturb me at my very much important science project.”

Keith had to admit, he was intimidated by this small genius. She was actually like, two heads smaller and at least two years younger than him, but he felt like talking to a giant who could crush him with one hand, if she so desired.  
“Lance is dead.”

Pidge lowered her hand with the screwdriver.  
“What?”, she asked, but something sounded different than usual. There was anger leaking into her face, as though Keith was about to cross a line. It kind of terrified him.

“His ghost- he- He doesn´t remember where he was when he died, so I need Hunk to tell me where he could have gone and-”  
“Stop.”, Pidge slowly said, her eyes knitted to the angriest frown he had ever seen her wear before.  
Keith did as told and shut his mouth.

Pidge now angrily raised the screwdriver at him and closed up on him.  
“Up until now, I´ve actually tried to be patient. I listened to your stupid ghost stories for about two years now and never, ever, have I made fun of that.  
I took you serious.  
But this is going too far. I may have been a bit impressed by your tendencies to be surprisingly specific with your knowledge and stuff, but don´t you dare make jokes like this.  
You have never, not even once given me evidence that ghosts truly exist. I trusted you before. That means I expect you to at least respect me a little. Not – play with my mind and betray that bit of faith I´ve gathered for you in those past few years.”

Keith´s eyes widened, as they crossed to keep the screwdriver in sight. But stumbled backwards, if only to bring some distance between them. Or rather, him and her torture instrument.

“Making up stories, with admittedly well researched connections to actual dead people is one thing. Lying about someone in our class DYING is NOT ok! You understand? Now leave this room and only come back when you decided not to mess with me anymore! Got it?!”

Keith´s shoulders sagged.  
He didn´t respond for a while and during that time, it was just him, facing away from her and her stupid screwdriver.

“Fine, I´ll leave, before you stab me to death. But I assure you, I would never lie about this.”, Keith hissed, turned around and left the room. As the door shut, Pidge almost felt bad. Almost. He looked serious, but she was certain.

She knew Lance. He was the last person on earth who would just go and – die. Like that.  
At least she heard what Hunk had told her about him. And he was a nice guy. He did not deserve to die and he definitely deserved more than rumors as such.

At least that was what she thought, when she continued working on her robot. Her phone, still on silent far off her reach. Heavy with new messages, she should have been reading yesterday.  
However, they had to wait, until the stress forced her to pass out. Again, in the middle of the room.

\-------------------------------

Keith went home furious. But as soon as he opened the door to his home, every emotion fled him at what he found.  
He did not expect to find Allura and Lance playing UNO. Of all things, UNO. Where did they even find that game? In Shiro´s underwear drawer? Because as Keith recalled that was the place he hid that, back when he moved in with Shiro. And Shiro had insisted on a game night at least once a week back then. That was years ago. He had never seen the game ever since. Never mind.

Speaking of whom, from the sound and smell of it, Shiro was preparing – dinner?  
Keith, step by step, went into the living room as though he was in some kind of haunted house. Wait – per definition that was exactly where he was.

“Ehm, hey guys?”, Keith greeted the two laughing ghosts. Though, Allura looked painfully concentrated on her cards.  
Lance looked from him to her and suddenly started grinning. “ Hey there, emo boy!  
Don´t worry about her. She just has trouble holding the cards. Aand thus, she´s loosing.”  
“Hey, it´s not my fault!”, Allura pouted. 

Keith put down his schoolbag slowly and his helmet right next to it.  
“Ok? I take it everything went well with Shiro?”, he asked, reminding Lance of their morning conversation.  
“What? Oh, yeah. It was peachy, once I stopped him from calling a therapist for you. You´re welcome by the way.”

Taken aback by the answer, Keith almost replied. But Lance stopped him in the middle of opening his mouth.  
“You should refrain from talking to us too much. He heard our conversation this morning. To be more precise, he only heard you. Since, you know, he cannot hear us. Which, admittedly, is always confusing. Speaking from experience here.”  
Lance put down his last card, almost screaming in delight. “UNO!”  
Allura let her cards fall down. “No fair! I have to concentrate to even hold the cards. If I could just hold them, I´d finish you easily.”, she crossed her arms over her chest.

Lance laughed at that. “Now, now. Don´t be such a sore looser, princess.”  
Keith sighed. Perhaps he really should not inform Lance on his lack of progress in finding his body.  
Once again, Keith felt some kind of dread filling his insides at the mere thought of withholding information from Lance. 

For some reason, Keith wanted him to know all about his research that day. And he felt, he could easily tell him. However, he did not want to upset Lance with everything he heard today. Not to mention how he could not even find a way to talk to Pidge about this.

“Seriously though Keith. You need to talk to Shiro about your visions. He´s worried about you.”, Lance´s voice dropped as he became more serious. 

Keith blinked as his thoughts were interrupted.  
“Not gonna happen. I really don´t want to add this to his important worries. Alright?”, Keith said. “Especially not before tomorrow.” Keith really expected a different reaction from Lance. He had expected at least a confused quirk of his brows at such a cryptic implication.

Instead, Lance stayed silent for like a minute. “Tomorrow is Wednesday, right?”  
Keith nodded. Now, Keith was curious. Did Lance know? Then again, how could he know?  
Did Shiro talk to himself about tomorrow? Perhaps, Shiro did talk to himself, when he tried to calm himself down. 

Was it not considered normal to talk to yourself here and there. As long as you did not see anyone that is. Confusing concept, but still.  
Anyway, Lance seemed to know something – more. Something even Keith was unaware of.

“He visits that girl once a week. The one I told you about. The one that is in a coma because of him.”, Keith whispered.

Lance looked at him, quiet for a second. He seemed to think for a while, until finally, he shook his head. “Not because of him. Because of the accident, they both were involved in. Don´t talk like it´s his fault, ok?”, Lance said.

“You heard him blame himself, didn´t you?”, Keith sighed. “Yeah, yeah, sure, you´re right.  
Can I- can you go with him tomorrow? To the hospital I mean. I´ve heard her condition is getting worse by the day.”  
´And I still have to find your body.´, he added in his mind.  
Surely Lance could search for his body by himself. But Keith felt like that was unwise. Lance did not seem concerned about it at all. And Keith got a feeling. He was unable to put a finger on it, he just knew.

However, was it wise to let Lance go with Shiro? Was it wise to trust him? Again, Keith had a feeling.

“Sure. Sure. I´ll inform you, when something happens.” Lance´s voice was distant now. Keith knew, there was probably more to this story than Lance let him believe. Perhaps he was even connected to this girl in some way. But Keith did not press the matter.

“Hey, ehm, can I sit down?”, he asked. Did Lance need a hug? Could you hug a ghost? Was Keith actually capable of hugging someone? Did he want to?

“Dude, this is your couch.”, Lance replied, a small smile on his face as he pat the space beside him.  
So Keith followed his invitation. Seconds later he felt something pressing to his side. It was not a body, nor was it warmth. 

It just felt like that awkward feeling, when you turned around in school, because you thought someone had tapped your shoulder.  
Like the memory of a feeling, but more present. As Keith looked to the side, he saw Lance leaning on him. Getting comfortable with his back against Keith´s side. It reminded him of water, somehow.

“Now what? You wanna wait for Shiro to call you for food, or do you want to see a movie?”  
Keith opened his mouth again, like a fish.

He was not used for people to be this close. It did not matter if Lance was a ghost or not. Physical closeness was something he just never knew.  
Even with Shiro, perhaps especially with Shiro around, he usually kept his distance.  
Who could blame him for flushing or getting nervous at the mere thought of Lance leaning on him? Because that is all it was, a thought.

Keith stood up after he realized what was happening.  
Lance almost stumbled, until he remembered that ghosts did not hit the ground. They could fly for gods sake.

“Yeah, no. You´re right, I should probably help Shiro in the kitchen.”, he said, far too loud to not be awkward. He could hear Shiro stopping whatever he was doing in there. But only for a second, as Shiro decided to ignore his odd sentence.

As the door shut, Lance could not help but pout at the sudden disappearance.  
“Wow, smooth, Lance.” Right, Allura had seen everything. Lance groaned. “What?”  
“Just saying, you sure know how to flirt. I´ve never seen him this flustered before.”

“What, really?”, Lance answered too fast. Even too fast for himself. “I mean, what a shame. It´s actually quite funny to see him act like this.”, Lance tried to cool it down.  
Allura laughed. 

“Does it even matter? I mean, I´m dead. I can flirt with like anyone now, without it having consequences, right?”, Lance murmured to himself.  
Allura seemed to think for a bit about that. 

“Well, actually, you can only talk to Keith. And I bet, whatever you do, it will have consequences for him. He may be tough, but I know you noticed that he´s sensitive. Don´t break his heart.”

Lance looked over his shoulder for a moment, in the direction that Keith left.  
The guy he was just messing with. Was he just messing with him? Only a day prior, Lance had hated him. And now? He did not even know what had happened. When had the atmosphere shifted so forcefully? 

There was an odd feeling in his chest that did not want to go away. When did it get there?  
´How are you so sure, he´s not going to break mine.´, his mind answered for him. It was a treacherous thought that Lance had been unaware of. It crept up on him like a spider, nesting his his ears as the words repeated themselves. Over and over. Even when he noticed Allura disappearing again, it did not stop.  
Lance shook his head. It was just a thought.

\------------------------

Pidge woke up in the middle of the night. You´d think a teacher may stop her from doing whatever pleases her. And yes, Iversion tried once. Just saying he´s been wearing an eye patch ever since.

It was the blinking light of her phone that she only noticed at like 2 am.  
Yawning she unlocked it, noticing the 27 new text messages from Hunk. This time, however, he was calling. Apparently not for the first time.

As she finally answered, she was greeted with a far too loud “PIDGE! FUCKING FINALLY!”  
Hunk. Was. Swearing. Shit.  
“What happened?, she asked, immediately alarmed.

“What happened? What happened?  
Have you seen Lance?”, he asked. “Huh?”, Pidge asked, now confused at the familiar question.

“He hasn´t texted me a single text since Sunday, Pidge. He NEVER does not text me at least five times a day. Not to count the thousands of memes he puts in his status. None of that either!

He´s not responding to my messages and my calls and since you didn´t either, I thought you might have involved him in one of your projects. But it´s been more than 48 hours now. What is going on, where is he? Please tell me, you´re hanging out.”

Pidge needed a second to comprehend what Hunk had just told her.

“Wait a second. Really? I haven´t seen him since Friday in school. Come to think of it, Keith came in today.”  
“Don´t change the subject, Pidge. Sorry, but this is kind of important.!”, Hunk seemed desperate. Frightening, in a way.  
“Yeah, I know. Keith said the same thing.”

“What do you mean?”, now Hunk was irritated. Great Pidge.

“I don´t really know. Even on Friday he seemed a bit concerned, because Lance had a fight with Nyma or something-”  
“Oh, yeah, Lance told me about that. She cheated on him with some guy called Lotor.”

Pidge´s eyes widened. What the -  
“Oh, well, that explains a lot.”, she calmly replied. Lotor used to be Keith´s friend. Perhaps that´s why he asked? I don´t know, I´m low on sugar, what did Keith say again?”

“Pidge, this is about Lance, not about Keith.”  
“Yes I know. Oh yeah, I remember. You know how Keith has this weird tick to see ghosts everywhere?”, Pidge turned around, reaching up to her face to correct the position of her glasses.

“Yeah? What does that have to do with anything?”, Hunk asked. Pidge, quite embarrassed, laughed a little.  
“According to that hallucination of his, I think Keith believes Lance is dead.”  
Silence filled the line. “Hunk? Are you ok? You know he´s making that up right?”

“I´m coming over.”  
Now, Pidge was fully awake. “No, Hunk. There is no need to come over. You´re aunt needs you! I´ll find Lance, don´t worry. I´ll -”

“No. Lance is my best friend. He needs me. This is final. I wasn´t there for him last week, when he needed me. I´ll be there tonight.” And with that, their conversation was over. Ignoring completely how ridiculous Keith´s theory sounded. Apparently Hunk was not taking any chances.

The thing is, Pidge had never, not even once, been scared in her entire life.  
But she had never heard Hunk like this.  
For the first time in her life, Pidge was terrified.

\-------------------

Despite how it sounded, Shiro loved waking up. Don´t get this wrong. He hated standing up, he hated not being able to sleep and he hated that he couldn´t just sleep a bit more.  
But the fact that he wakes up, means that at least he slept at all.  
Some nights he just laid in his bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to ignore the nightmares that crept into his mind.

He could still hear the screaming sometimes, the crashing sound of glass.  
Sometimes, he felt his arm being ripped off by that metal thing the other car had been transporting.  
A few centimeters to the side and it had either impaled his insides or his head. Who knew? Shiro had been lucky. 

The man in the other car not so much. Shiro had seen his face, had been staring right into it as they crashed.  
It was like time slowed down as the face came closer, eyes widening until the man crashed right through the window.  
Shiro tried telling himself it was not his fault the guy never wore a seat belt. But it had been Shiro who did not see the stop sign. Or rather ignored it.

“Yeah, sure I know. …... I never forget my helmet. ….... Yes, I´ve got my keys, mom.”  
Shiro could hear the voice from downstairs. Shiro did not really know what to make of all this nonsense.  
Who the hell was Keith talking to again? According to the sarcasm in the word “mom”, he concluded it was not Keith´s mom.  
Keith laughed.

Shiro sat up immediately on his bed. Did he hear that right? Keith was laughing?  
Sneaky, as though he was invading someone else´s home instead of his own, he moved his way towards the stairs. He looked down.  
Keith must have been done with breakfast already. Just like the day before. And just like the day before, he was staring at a certain spot in the middle of the room.  
With like the softest smile Shiro had ever seen on him.

It was the kind of similar to the rare one directed at Shiro himself. And only, when he was feeling particular sick or came back from a trip that took at least a whole month. (Which only happened twice.)  
Rather, this smile seemed even more intense. Shy, but genuine. Shiro knew that Keith had hallucinations, sometimes talked to some of them. But since he returned from medical care, things had been fine. The doctors said there was nothing wrong with him. That he would be ok now.  
His ´demons´ were not evil, they said.  
And Shiro really wanted to believe that. For a second, Shiro actually did. Because Keith looked so relaxed at whomever he saw.

“Fine. But keep the volume down. And shut it down when Shiro wakes up.”, Keith said, grabbing his keys.  
“No, no, I´m telling you. Talking to him about this would be like admitting I´m sick. Which I am not. ….. I told you, I´m not going to drop that ghost nonsense onto him. …  
Ok, yes, you´ve got a point. … Trust you? …. hmm, maybe. Depends on how you behave today. Can you let Kosmo out, too? Thanks. …..

And try not to break Shiro, alright, Lance?”  
Suddenly, the TV flashed up, Volume a bit too loud to be considered ´low´. Shiro jumped at the sound. What just happened?  
“I said, put the volume down. Geez, Lance.”, Keith shook his head and went towards the door.

Shiro double checked the whole scene, as he gaped at the sight.  
Was that the TV remote floating in the air and the Volume actually turning down?  
“Thanks. Just saying. Take care of him, will you.” Keith just said and headed towards the door.

“See you.”, Keith said, shot the invisible guest this weird smile and left.  
And Shiro? Shiro stood there, waiting for anything to happen. But all that did happen was the TV to switch channels, until the remote was put back on the table. The next thing that went up was Keith´s recent sketchbook.  
Weird, usually Keith never let it lie around the house. Was the Sketchbook not in the kitchen, yesterday? Wait – that was not the issue here.

Shiro took a deep breath. He must be imagining things. Except, Shiro did not see things. He did not hallucinate. Keith did. Also, he just had some rare, proper sleep.

Or Shiro actually did not and this was just some new kind of paranoia he was trapped in?  
Was he getting worse?  
He moved towards the stairs and tried to normally walk them down. He did not know whether his invisible imagination saw him, but the fact that the TV was suddenly shut down only proofed that either their TV was broken, or Shiro really just saw remotes and Sketchbooks floating around for no reason.

Shiro shook his head, as after that, everything went quiet and nothing strange happened.  
He slapped his own face, took some of the Sandwiches Keith left for him and sat down at the kitchen table.  
He felt like he was being watched and he hated every second of it. 

But what if, what if Keith really had not made up any of his ghost stories? Not that it was possible, but hypothetically?

What if he actually saw dead people talking to him?  
What did he call the recent one? Lance? Shiro stopped eating. Was this a coincidence?  
Probably. Then again, how many Lance´s lived in this town? Emphasis on ´lived´, Shiro´s mind unhelpfully added. Shiro shook his head. He was going mental.  
The whole, Keith was seeing ghosts again only got to him on an emotional level. And his desperate wish to believe in his brother forced him to see things. This must be it.  
Except, why was Kosmo not in his usual place but by the couch in the living room? And why did he look, like he was being pet?

Shiro´s morning went on like this. It was an on and off, with himself reconsidering the things he saw again and again. Until he concluded that he must be delirious.  
Remotes didn´t fly and the TV was probably just broken. Nothing to worry about. Kosmo was an entirely different matter. But could Kosmo actually share Keith´s hallucinations? He was a dog after all. Was there a difference?

Sooner than he anticipated, it was already time for him to leave.  
He left the house, went to his car and drove of. His destination? Obviously the hospital.

The drive, as always, took around three quarters of an hour. The parking lot was full, as always, but Shiro went here often enough to know where the best spots were. And where people tended not to park. Another short walk and he was already informing the woman on the front desk of his arrival.  
The woman´s name was Romelle. She was a blond nurse with an extraordinary personality. Hobbies? To Shiro´s knowledge: Talking, gossip and jokes. She had been here the first day he came and he adored her deeply.

“Hey, Shiro. Everything alright? How did you sleep tonight?”, she asked kindly.  
“Pretty good actually, compared to usual, thank you. How are you yourself?”

Small talk with her always calmed him. It distracted him from his mind. People were complicated. He once listened to a drunken guy talk about how ´his cat betrayed him´, for like a solid hour to get his mind somewhere else.  
Shiro had had one of his worse nights that day and was grateful for the distraction.  
It was a horrible night.

She went with him into the room. The girl he visited was separated from other rooms. Her mom´s new boyfriend had some money on his hand, so they could afford this place.  
If it was a waste for a girl who had been in a coma for three years, you may decide for yourself.  
But she always looked the same. Needles in her arms, connected to beeping machines that Shiro never wanted to see again in his entire life.  
She needed help breathing and nutrients were pumped directly into her veins. Shiro hated the sight. And he hated that it was his own fault. 

“She´s not getting better, to be honest. Quite the opposite actually. I´ve heard the doctors say something like, she´s not making it more than a week or so. Sometimes I wonder if they make bets, with how obsessed they are with their whole “how long is that person doing this or that...”  
Anyway, I heard, the last time her mom came in was like, Saturday?. She´s working twenty four seven now, as I heard. She took another job. She used to come here twice a day!  
Anyway, I don´t even know why she works at all anymore. They have enough money. Why bother, if you cannot visit your own daughter?”, Romelle shook her head, a sad expression on her face as she looked at the young lady.

“I think I understand. She wants to distract herself. How to better do this than with work? I mean, it´s not healthy, but it feels better than sitting around and waiting.”, Shiro explained.

“Sure, still. Can you go and visit her family today?”, Romelle asked.  
“I was already planning to.”, Shiro said and sighed. 

“Alright. Thanks. Greet them from me, please.  
… I´ll leave you alone with her for a second, alright?”  
Shiro only nodded. He didn´t expect her to stay anyway, Shiro took a deep breath and closed in on the bed.  
Romelle was right. The girl looked paler than usual. Grey was not a nice color on her dark skin, Shiro decided. At least her hair looked fine. As fine as a patients hair could look at least.

“Hey there. Long time no see.”, Shiro stood there awkwardly for a moment, but he knew it didn´t matter either way. She was unconscious. So he sat beside her bed, wondering for the thousandth time if it was inappropriate to be so close to a girl, he never personally knew. 

Internally, he flinched every time when he saw the giant scar on her right cheek that was caused by the window her head had crashed through. It was also the cause of her current condition. And it was a torturous reminder of Shiro´s sin. 

“I actually came for a reason today.”, Shiro faltered. Shame was clearly visible in his eyes.  
He shuddered at his own words. Uncertain whether or not it was okay to say this.

“Sunday evening, I had an accident. Again. You´d think after last time I´d be more careful. It seems, I´m not. I had my reasons for being distracted, but that is no excuse.  
I – I ran over someone.”, he admitted, feeling the shivers trail up his skin. Even at the lack of response, he was afraid of every word he muttered. 

Suddenly he jumped. He could have sworn there was someone touching his shoulder. The feeling did not go away, but as Shiro looked over his shoulder, there was no one. Must be his imagination again.

Still irritated, Shiro turned towards the girl again.  
“Well. Ehm. I- I mean, how unlucky can one person be? I crashed you, your father and now I ran over your brother.

I mean, I barely hit him. He could walk at least. He even ran away. I searched for him, but I couldn´t find him and I´m, I´m so sorry, Veronica.”, Shiro felt the tears swelling up in his eyes. As he felt the faint pressure on his shoulder tighten, he was not surprised, but it still shook him.

Still confused, he knew now, he was not imagining it.  
“Honestly? I feel as though he is here with us right now.”, he said slowly. The grip loosened. And suddenly Shiro was scared. Because this was real.  
He was certain now. He was going mental himself. He must be. Or did he need proof first? Perhaps that was the more logical turn of action. Testing if Lance was alive.  
How better to do that than by visiting the McClain´s?

\-------------------

 

The McClains didn´t live far from the hospital. Quite ironic, Shiro thought. Not for the first time. Only five minutes and he was at their small farm, barely outside of town. He did not even need to drive there. He could just walk.

The place was huge. Even though they had stopped farming years ago. But what belonged to them still belonged to them.  
Who would ever take it away from them?  
Shiro passed the trees that stood tall, right next to the surprisingly clean street. It was calm. The sun was laughing and illuminating the green of the leafs. Covering the entire place in light and the feeling of summer.  
It smelled like grass and the upcoming of rain and Shiro inhaled the freshness of it all. 

The stalls, where cows used to live looked old and the color on it´s walls was already fading. One equally old looking bike leaned against it, tires flat. Light reflecting from the metallic surface.  
The windows were not as clean, as Shiro would have preferred. But the smudge took the form of fingerprints and children hands. It probably did not make sense to clean them all the time.

The weird part of this household surely was the fact that everything reminded you of sunshine and baked goods. It seemed clean and warm, despite their open doors and messy floors. Nothing indicated what a horrible fate they were suffering from.  
It irritated Shiro like almost nothing else.

As he reached the front door, he noticed someone watching him. This time, however, as he turned around, he could actually see the person.  
They had a completely different feeling to them than the calm hand presence thing had at the hospital. Still, this stalker was another addition to his concerns.  
She was hiding behind one of the blueberry bushes in front of the garden wall.

Shiro inhaled deeply. He should not think too much about this. She was probably a friend of one of the kids that lived in this house. Perhaps she was only waiting for some of them to come out. Then again, should they not be in school?

Still, he ignored her for now and knocked on the door.  
However, nobody opened. Right, why was Shiro even surprised at that?  
It was Wednesday morning, 11 am. Most adults were at work this time around.

But then, he heard a sound. It came from the garage they had build onto the house, soon after Sendak had come into their life´s.  
Shiro hesitated, it was not his place to just sneak around at this home. He also did not really like Sendak. No particular reason. It was just the feeling he had around him.  
That was, until he heard a loud curse.

“Hello?”, Shiro asked, as he followed the sound.  
“What? Who´s there?”, a male voice replied.  
“Honey!”, a woman corrected his outburst. “What? Oh, yeah right. Inappropriate. I know. Sorry.”  
The someone exhaled a deep breath.  
Finally, Shiro recognized their voices.  
One of them was Veronica´s mother. She was a beautiful small woman, with a power behind her voice that put most of Shiro´s own outbursts to shame.

She had long, wavy brown hair and a spark in her eyes, that only ever died down when she visited her daughter, or her husbands grave.  
The man however, was Mr. Sendak. A well known architect. He planned the playgrounds all around town. The only one that was left to be redesigned was the one behind the school yard.

Children had abandoned that place long ago, even before Shiro was born.

Kind of ironic that man. Because whenever Shiro saw him, he expected children to be afraid of them. Perhaps they were.  
Maybe, he made those playgrounds as an apology for all the children he ever scared in his life. Who knew? Currently, the man was sitting inside of his car, door wide open. Why?, Shiro asked himself. It did not look like he was going anywhere, but tempering with something.

“Shiro! What are you doing here?”, Mrs. McClain asked as she finally saw him. (She had insisted once that Shiro called her his mom. For one, because Shiro did not have a mom. For another, to assure him that she was not mad at him for what happened. She practically adopted him after the accident. It kind of made matters worse. But he did not dare tell her that. He still called her Mrs. McClain.)

“Ehm, it´s Wednesday. I visited your daughter.”, he said. Mrs. McClain smiled sadly. “You´re such a good guy, still coming over once a week.”  
“Romelle told me, you´re not going there every day anymore. She´s worried about you.”

She looked down. Apparently already regretting ever greeting him at all.“I´m sorry. I should go inside. I just came back from the night shift. I´m a bit tired.”  
She did not even look at him. Shiro wanted to say something, but Mr. Sendak glared at him, before he continued fumbling with the something in the car.

“I understand, Mrs. McClain. You should rest a bit.”

“Thanks, Shiro. Let´s – let´s talk about this another time.”, she went to go inside, but then, Shiro remembered something.  
“Wait a second, Mrs. McClain.”  
She stopped in her tracks, looking at him questioningly. “What is it?”, she asked, nervous. Nervous?

“I wanted to know, if I could talk to you son for a second. Lance. He- ehm. He´s a friend of my brother, I just wanted to ask him something. Keith said, Lance did not turn up in school and I wanted to check on him.” It was a lie, sure. But that was a lie Mrs. McClain had yet to discover.

Shiro did not exactly know if Lance turned up in school or not. He did not even know if the Lance Keith was talking to was in his class at all. Or if he was the same age as Lance McClain. Actually, Shiro began to wonder, if he had been too fast in his conclusion. The Lance Keith saw could be anyone. Could be made up. What was he thinking?

Irritated, Mrs. McClain looked at him.  
“Wait a second, I´ll go look in his room. Now that you mention him, I haven´t seen him for a while, either.”

She turned around and disappeared inside the house. Leaving Shiro confused. Would she not know, if Lance had left the house in the morning? She could have just told him, that Lance had told her, he went to school. Even if he really stayed at home, would he not have either lied to her or made sure she believed he was sick? You know, to not worry her?

Mr. Sendak just shared Shiro a glance of suspicion. “May I ask, what you have to do with that kid?”  
Shiro flinched. ,that´ kid?  
“Oh, nothing. As I said, he´s a friend of Keith´s. And Keith was concerned for him. So-”

“Yeah, you know. Just checking. Your brother – he´s not a fag, is he? Not that they ran off together or something.”

Shiro´s eyes widened. ,fag´ his mind whispered.  
“Sorry, I get that you must be confused. I mean. I´m pretty sure, Lance is one. He´s been acting weird, whenever I mentioned this horrible pride march downtown. At one point he shouted at me that it was none of my business, who other people liked. I know I hit a nerve. But, man. That kid has some weird issues. Just when I thought, he´d bring home a decent girl.  
Sure, she´s an alcoholic. Still better than a guy, am I right?”

Shiro should punch him. He really should. But he couldn´t. Not because he did not want to, but because the fear in his veins was keeping him from moving or saying anything. Now that they mentioned it, Keith had never specifically told him who he might like. Neither girls nor guys. He had never even smiled at anyone like he cared.  
Except for this morning that is -

“Am I right?”, the suspicious question caught him off guard.  
But thankfully he did not have to answer, since Mrs. McClain just came back outside.  
How had Shiro not noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She had been smiling before. But in this moment, she looked confused and a bit scared. And that was being kind. She was completely pale, eyes wide in irritation and worry.

“What´s wrong?”, Shiro asked.

“He´s- he´s not in his room.” 

Shiro raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “Well? I might be wrong, I suppose.”

“No, you don´t understand. I haven´t seen Lance since last week or so and his bed is still made. He ONLY makes his bed on Sunday, because his aunt likes to check on it and pummel him if he doesn´t.  
And she only ever visits on Sunday. But on Monday, it´s usually unmade.  
There is dust everywhere. His schoolbag is also in his room. The only thing that is missing is his phone and I called him. I can only reach the mailbox. And I only ever reach his mailbox when his phone is uncharged.  
I- I have no idea where he is!” 

Shiro stared at her, eyes widening. Realization hit him. Lance was gone. Truly gone. For all they knew, Keith could be right. Maybe, Lance was dead. Maybe he was a ghost. But there was more.  
Because for a second, he felt the presence beside him shift in his position. And not only that. Another person, still hiding between the trees did too.

\------------------

 

Nyma had heard everything. She was hiding behind that bush and she knew Shiro had heard her.  
What exactly was going on?  
Mrs. McClain usually checked on her children at least three times a day. And now, Lance had been gone for three days at least and she hadn´t even noticed until Shiro – Keith´s brother of all people, came along and asked?

This was getting more and more scary, with every passing day.

And there was still no sign of Lance.  
Shiro looked panicked. He continued arguing with her, were Lance could be, while Sendak only glared daggers at him.

Minutes later, Lance´s mom was calling the police. And now, now it was clear how serious the situation was.  
If even Mrs. McClain didn´t know what was going on, when Keith started seeing his ghost, Shiro kept asking questions and even the police got involved - 

Nyma tried to calm herself as she messaged Rolo.  
It was time to search for Lance. And she knew exactly where to find him.

 

Nyma was out with her friends. And as usual, she got drunk. To the point were she made out with literally any guy who as much as looked at her.  
But when things got worse, she started puking and they turned away. Disgusted of course. She could not even blame them. She was a disgrace, a mess. Somewhere in the corner of a street, she would wake up with no memories. Only whispers as a reminder that everyone could see her. Everyone would judge her.

And then, Lance came to her rescue. In the middle of a dark september night, when the stars were covered by clouds and rain had drenched her to the point that if he didn´t, she might have frozen to death.  
Lance helped her get to the nearest toilet to puke her guts out.  
He held up her hair, sobered her up with water and took her home. To his own house, because she insisted she could not go to hers like this. 

He helped her get in his bed and gave her warm clothes and hot tea to drink. He even slept on the couch downstairs.  
He let her sleep through the school day and prepared a hangover breakfast for her, while skipping school himself.  
School, only to help her. Even though he needed good grades to apply to that college about astrophysics, as everyone who ever listened to him in class would know. 

He ignored that she threw up in his bed and simply cleaned it up. They watched a movie together and he acted like nothing ever happened.

She was mean then. Said, he wouldn´t get anything from her, just because he pitied her, because that had happened before. And the memory haunted her ever since.  
But Lance had only laughed. And told her, that everyone got drunk then and again. He just helped her, because she was his friend. He loved her and he was certain, she´d do the same for him.  
Nyma knew, she would not. Because until then, she had been treating him like shit. Like dirt on the sidewalk. Like people treated her, when she was drunk.

That was when she decided she had to confide in him and told him about her issues at home.  
She remembered how Lance had listened. Had comforted her and told her, it was not her fault. How he hugged her and then – then he took her with him, showing him his “favorite place in the world”, to distract her. And it was a nice night then. The sky clearing up just enough to see the stars reflected in his eyes. 

It was the night she had fallen in love with him.

Nyma shook her head. This was not the time for memories.  
But she knew that was the place she had to go to, right now. If she could find Lance anywhere, it was there. Perhaps Lance even wanted her to find him. 

Waiting for her apology, which, as she now knew, he deserved.  
Nyma was not patient enough to wait for Rolo´s answer, though. He may be a rebel, but he always turned off his phone in school. Even Rolo had dreams for the future. 

As Nyma saw the school yard, she hesitated. Perhaps this was not the best time to remember that she skipped school today and pretended to be ill.  
If someone saw her, she´d be in trouble. 

In this very moment, she heard the police sirens. It filled her steps with purpose and her eyes with determination. Lance was worth it.  
All that threw her off was the odd look she received from the one person who liked to ignore her at any given moment. Only now, he did not.

Keith was sitting at his usual tree, raising an eyebrow at her.  
She shook her head. Keith Kogane was the last person she wanted to talk to right now. Or could, for that matter. She already had to risk being discovered, if she wanted to find Lance. She could not get caught up in his mess. 

Only a few meters from Keith stood the person she needed to talk to right now. Rolo.

\-----------------------

Pidge could not work. Not when she knew Hunk was coming. And on top of that, for the same reason she had ridiculed Keith.

Now she was walking circles in the IT-lab. If Lance was really gone...  
Why did he leave? Where would he go? Could she find him through his phone?  
After all, she had his number. That should be enough to find it, right? Then both Hunk and Keith could stop worrying and or messing with her and she had the entire lab to herself again.

So, she sat down on her laptop and started the very same program she used to keep her brother in check. Matt Holt may be a good person and smart and all that. But he was also a dumb piece of shit who went to college to date, not to learn.  
He could have skipped more than one grade, if he wanted to. But he had this crush and has been pining after them for years now. So Pidge called him whenever he was somewhere he was not supposed to be and disrupted any chances he may have with that person.  
Idiot. Way to ruin your future for a -

Oh, there it is.  
Pidge blinked. Wasn´t this the police station? Why would Lance be at the police station?  
Did he commit a crime?  
Then again, she only found his phone. Someone might have turned it in on the lost and found section at the police?  
But did that imply that Lance truly disappeared? Or at least, somehow lost his phone?

Pidge shook her head. This was getting more and more out of hand.  
Perhaps she should go and talk to Keith? After all, she had been quite angry with him the day before. Keith had only been concerned for what reason so ever.  
He meant well, even though he was confused sometimes. Though it was odd that he was concerned for Lance at all.  
Maybe, Lance just ran away and after he realized people could track him through his phone, he tossed it away?

Perhaps she only needed to wait for Hunk to return. He may knew were Lance ran off to.  
Perhaps they were going to find -

“Pidge?” Pidge looked up. She had not heard someone coming in. In the doorway, however, stood the last person, she´d ever expect closer than one mile radius around the IT club.  
Nyma. She looked frantically from side to side, as though she did not want anyone to know she was here. Or that she´d been on the brink of crying.  
But why? And why was she here? The place she usually calls the nerd cave. And only, if she was complimenting it.

“I – ehm. I really, really need your help. You´re smart, right?”, she asked. Pidge could tell how nervous she was. She looked like she ran here. She was fidgety and sweaty. But Pidge could not tell whether from nerves or exercise.

“Yes, I am a genius, thank you. What brings you here.”  
“I thought, maybe you could track Lance´s phone for me.”, she said and Pidge gaped. She too? Even Nyma did not know where Lance could possibly be?

“I- I already did that. Hunk called me. He´s coming back to find him. Lance has not responded to his calls and-” Was Nyma seriously crying? Here? Right in front of her? The blackmail queen?

“Not even to Hunk, oh god.”, she went pale. Like absolutely pale. She almost put Keith´s white-as-sheet-paper-skin to shame.

“His phone is at the police station. Maybe someone found it. Or - “  
Suddenly there were the sounds of sirens in the distance. Were they there before? Pidge could not tell. She was just so lost in thought.

“Wait, you don´t think, they found him somewhere or-”, now Pidge went just as pale.  
But Nyma shook her head.

“No, no. I was at Lance´s house just now. They just called the police. They are searching for him now.”  
“Wow, they noticed his absence early.”, Pidge almost chuckled. If only it was funny.  
Nyma looked at her, as if Pidge had slapped her. Guilt written on her face. Which meant – Pidge´s eyes widened.  
“You mean, they just noticed?”

Nyma nodded.  
“Do you know where he might be?”, Pidge asked. If there was anyone but Hunk who could find Lance, it was Nyma.  
“Y-yeah. I think he might be on the old school yard. It´s – it´s his favorite place to hang out.  
He took me there a few times.”

“Why are you not searching there then?”, Pidge was curious. If Nyma already had an idea, why did she not do everything she could to find Lance?

“Ehm – Lance is currently mad at me. So I thought he might come back, when he´s ready, but he hasn´t and now Keith is talking to his ghost and – I´m scared, ok?!”

Pidge raised an eyebrow. “You know that Keith is just seeing things, right? Don´t worry. I´m sure Lance just ran away. And – lost his phone on his way and- “ Pidge stopped.  
“I think we should probably wait for Hunk. If anyone knows how to handle – whatever we´re going to find, it´s him. It shouldn´t take long anymore either. He just texted he´ll be here in like ten to twenty minutes.”

Nyma accepted with a simple nod, horror in her eyes. Maybe it was not the wisest decision to tell her Hunk was on his way.  
“ I can - wait here with you, right?”  
Pidge sighed, but shrugged with her shoulders eventually.  
So Nyma sat down, her legs criss cross on the ground, while she stared ahead.  
“Hey, why isn´t Rolo with you? If you´re searching for Lance, wouldn´t you include your best friend?”

“Rolo – ehm – he´s not very happy that I asked him were Lance was. He´s jealous, because we just started dating and -”  
“Oh. Ok. No need to tell me the details. I can tell it´s complicated.”  
“Thank you, Pidge.”  
“No problem.”

\---------------------------------------------------

Keith had seen Nyma walk into the school. She was talking to Rolo for a short minute, then she disappeared inside, leaving an angry Rolo behind.  
Keith knew, she had been skipping school. Even more concerning to see her here now.

But when he took a double look, he could not help but stare.  
He stood up, as the person following Nyma suddenly approached him. So, he had not been seeing things.

“Lance? What are you doing here?”, he asked. Because, why on earth was he not with Shiro?  
“You promised to take care of Shiro! I thought-”  
“Shiro went to my house.”

Keith closed his mouth, intelligently. Lance looked serious. Mad, distraught, and terrified. Hurt even.  
“He was talking to my mom. And –.”  
Tears were streaming down his face. Keith gaped, stuttering to find something to calm him down, but what was there to calm down?  
But the answer came sooner than expected. “They didn´t even notice I was gone!  
“I mean, Sendak is a given, but my mom? My own mom?”

His voice cracked and Keith? Keith could not focus on anything or anyone but him right now.

“Holy shit, Lance. I – Are you okay?”, what else to say?  
But Lance let out a sad excuse of a laugh.

“Peachy, really. Except of course for the fact I died. And, apparently, nobody cares.” The sarcasm was heavy in this one.  
“I can´t believe you´re the only one who does. I think. At least you know I am dead. You used to hate me so much, you glared daggers at me in school.”  
Lance started shivering, despite the lack of movement. He stood there like a statue. As if he had trouble standing still.

Keith did not know what to do. “I never hated you.”, Keith said, confused where this even came from. “And of course I care.” Well, of course was overstated, perhaps. Keith never cared before, but there was something about Lance that made him.

Lance shook his head. He does know Keith didn´t hate him, right?  
“Yes, I know. I´m just- “, Lance started.  
“Emotional?”, Keith unhelpfully finished and again, Lance let out a sob.

And now? Now Keith did the only thing that made sense to him in this context. It´s just, that he did not think whether or not it would work and the fact that nobody could even see Lance, made it a bit weird. But honestly? Keith did not care. He hugged Lance anyway.  
And despite the fact that Lance was not even physically here, Keith could feel him tense at the action. He could feel Lance´s form, as though he was only invisible and not just the faint memory of his existence.  
To Keith, Lance was the most real being, he´d seen since his mother died and tricked him into believing she didn´t.

It took a couple of seconds, but Lance hugged him back. Unaware of their audience.

“Holy shit, look at what Kogane is doing.”, he heard Rolo laugh.  
Keith closed his eyes.  
“Keith, perhaps you should let go of me.”, Lance whispered with a sob.  
“Nope. Just ignore him.”

But a second later, Rolo approached Keith. “No seriously, weirdo, what are you doing.”  
Keith barely looked up as he continued to ignore him.  
“Honestly, Keith. You should let go.”, Lance insisted. “You sure?”, Keith asked, without shame.  
“I- I am.”  
“Because just so you know, your feelings are important and you can talk to me anytime.” Keith stared him right in the eye and it caused the people around them to whisper. Because now, a small crowd was gathering around the three of them.

“Yes, but so do yours. And – and they are judging you.”  
“They do that either way. “  
Lance stared into Keith´s eyes. Knowing that nobody could see his own breakdown. Just Keith talking to invisible air. Still, he was so close.

“Seriously Kogane, you´re getting worse by the day, aren´t you?” Rolo now said. Something in his voice indicated that Keith´s behavior was scaring him. But it was not enough to stop him.  
“This has nothing to do with you Rolo. “  
“No shit, sherlock. That is not my point! I´m starting to think you´re actually seeing those ghosts of yours. And I´m telling you, if that is true, I´m calling the police.”

Finally, Keith let go of Lance, making him shudder at the loss of contact. Keith was so much warmer than he was. That alone felt comforting enough.

“Are you an idiot? If I´m mental, you should call a medical facility. Being ill is not against the law.”, Keith said, more confused than actually angry.

Rolo´s eye twitched. “Watch it, Kogane.”  
“Or what? You gonna punch me?”, Keith said without thinking. He stood between Rolo and Lance´s ghost and for some reason, he felt like he was protecting his friend. Despite the fact that nobody could hurt a ghost. At least not physically.  
But Keith had never had a friend to protect. The feeling made him feel steady. Strong.

Rolo did not even hesitate as he did what he was told. 

Why Rolo was so angry? Keith never knew. But he was the type to act on his anger. Keith stumbled back, as he lost his balance and fell into the dirt beneath him.  
Silence filled the air, as Lance gasped at the sight. Keith stood up, his right eye burning and pulsing from the impact with Rolo´s fist. But he did not even flinch as he ignored the protective stand Rolo was keeping. He sprinted towards him like a bull seeing red and punched the air out of Rolo´s lungs.  
Now it was Rolo who stumbled backwards.

“Keith, stop this.”, Lance insisted, trying to hold back him by the arm. “This is ridiculous, you know why he does not take you seriously.”  
“Well, thank you for your support, but I don´t care.”, Keith hissed, earning a confused stare from Rolo whose eyes squinted with murder intent. 

“What is going on?”, a someone interrupted. And as Keith turned around in shock, he did not see the next punch coming.  
Wheezing, he found himself on the ground again, Lance still trying to stop him.  
But even this ended as Lance saw who was shoving himself through the crowd.

“Hunk?”, he asked and Keith could tell this was not what he expected.  
But Rolo did mot stop. His useless friends were only screaming at him to “give the freak another”. The ridiculousness of it all made Keith even angrier.

“Rolo, stop this. We have more concerning things to take care of. Have you seen Lance somewhere around?!”, Hunk stood between them now. And Keith? Keith actually let him.

“Hunk? You´re here.”, the emotions in Lance´s voice suddenly wavered. His voice was still cracked from the hurt of his parents ignorance and the gratefulness of Keith´s support. But also the anger of him raging out and then the sheer relief of seeing his best friend.

Keith kept silent as Rolo just scoffed. “What about him, huh? That pussy just skipped school a couple of times. Why is EVERYONE looking for him?”  
Lance flinched as he heard that, hiding behind Keith now.  
Looking at the fury in Hunk´s eyes, he turned outright terrified. Of course, the only one who noticed was still Keith. Who would have calmed him down, if he was not trying to retrieve his balance as he still lay on the ground, breathless.

“He´s my friend, you bastard. Now, tell me were you last saw him!”, Hunk stood there like a giant, demanding to be obeyed.  
But Rolo was an idiot. He did not give in. “No. If that attention seeking idiot thinks he can just disappear, then let him. He´ll come back eventually.”

Hunk´s eyes twitched and Lance and Keith both looked at each other. Knowing exactly what was going to happen.  
Hunk was about to punch Rolo. Keith jumped to his feet, but Lance was faster.  
He screamed, like he had never screamed before. To Keith, it felt like his ears fell of.  
“HUNK, STOP!”  
Hunk did as told, arms still in midair. Eyes widened and not just his. Rolo as well, cowering before Hunk, turned to see where this came from. The crowd moved as well, trying to find the source of the noise.  
“Did- did you just hear that?”, Hunk asked, confused. Keith stared at him. “You did?”

“It- it was right beside my ear. Lance? Are you here? Where are you?”, Hunk cried out. “You asshole, to think I was worried, show yourself!”

Lance cried again. Tears streaming down his face. “You can hear me?”  
But Hunk did not respond. Keith finally stood up. “Hunk.”  
“Not now, Keith. Lance is here somewhere.”

“Yes he is. He is right beside you.”, Keith croaked out. Hunk turned, almost touching Lance from the movement. But he stared right through him at Keith.  
“Keith, this is not funny.”  
Keith stood up, slowly. “You don´t understand, Hunk.”, he said, moving closer to the big guy. The confused, gentle giant.

“Here.”, he said, receiving yet another odd look, as he navigated his way around Lance and took Hunk´s arm to move it forward, until it touched Lance. Up until now it had been a mere theory of his, but he had to test it either way. Lance did not move, while Rolo looked like he wanted to kill someone for the turn of events. The ridiculous turn of events.  
Hunk gasped as his hand reached the nothing. Only that the nothing felt like something. “What is-”  
“Hunk. You know who this is.”  
Hunk turned to Keith. “No. No, that´s-”

Lance lifted his own hand, touching Hunk´s arm. Again, Hunk flinched at the sudden contact. “He´s holding your arm now.”, Keith said and as though in response, Hunk felt the touch tightening on his wrist.

“Holy hell.”, he muttered and tears started streaming down his face. He turned to Keith. “How long?” Keith did not answer.  
“How long has he – how long have you seen him?!”, Hunk specified, still shaking at the contact with Lance´s spirit.  
Keith hesitated until he answered. “Monday morning.”  
Hunk sobbed. “What happened?”, he asked. “I don´t know.”, Keith admitted. “He didn´t tell. But he´s happy to see you.”

“We – I -”, Hunk didn´t know what to say.  
“What the hell guys. Can you please stop this stupid charade -” “Shut up Rolo!”, Keith hissed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How was this chapter so funny to me again? I´m rereading it and I feel horrible XD


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of homophobia and biphobia again.  
> And Tears. Lots of Tears.  
> Finally, they find Lance.

Hunk was distraught. According to Keith, they had not found Lance´s body yet.  
Which meant that somewhere in this town, a two day old corpse was lying around and nobody even noticed what happened.  
The sheer agony, disappeared however, when he lead both Lance´s ghost and Keith towards the IT-club where he promised to meet up with Pidge. Rolo, like a kicked puppy, followed close behind.

When Pidge saw him, she hesitated to say anything at first. Until she noticed Hunk had been crying, so she hugged him immediately. Nyma sat there awkwardly and tried to be invisible. Only that she was not a ghost, so that Rolo noticed her just as much as Keith did.

“What are those – holy crap Keith, what happened to your eye?”, she rose to her feet, forgetting her earlier desire to be ignored. She was too distraught to live up to her usual bitchy personality. Right now she was just scared.  
Keith touched his eye, as though he had not noticed the giant swelling.

“Oh that. Forget about it. We have a corpse to find.”  
Nyma winced at the sentence, Pidge flinched, but Hunk did not waver.  
“We don´t even know if he´s dead. I located his phone. It´s at the police station. We could either go there and find out some clues that may be on it, or we´re going with Nyma´s idea and search at the old school yard.”

Hunk stood there, silent for a second. As if he did know something that Pidge was yet unaware of.

“Lance? If you´re still here, can you touch Pidge´s shoulder for a second?”, he said, without looking around. What would be the point. He could not see Lance anyway.  
Pidge opened her mouth to say something, while Keith looked at Lance and nodded as a sign for him to proceed.  
He heard him sigh, then Lance stepped forward, putting his hand on her shoulder.  
Pidge screamed.  
“Holy fuck, what the- how?”, she stumbled back, almost tripping over her own project as Nyma caught her mid-fall.

Nyma looked even more concerned. “What happened?”  
“That was like ice touching my shoulder. What the hell was that?”  
Keith shook his head, while Rolo skeptically crossed his arms.  
“That´s Lance.”, Keith explained.  
“Yeah, no shit, asshole! You told me poltergeists were rare and needed years of training to move objects. How can he touch me then? Huh? What kind of trick is this? Please tell me you´re messing with me.”, she sounded desperate. Defensively trying to protect herself with words. But even Pidge realized that it was pointless to try and explain this with science.

Keith wanted to say something and decidedly ignored Pidge´s inability to apologize for the events the day before.  
She was in shock and her outburst had been reasonable too.

“I – honestly, I have no idea. I´ve never met a ghost like him. I told you that. All I can think of is what Allura told me. That the better of a person you were in your life, the higher your chances are of moving objects.”, Keith slowly said. Up until now, the knowledge hat never hit him like it did now. Getting to know Lance made it kind of, understandable, real. He saw Lance judging him. Of course, Lance would doubt it. But in a way, Lance had proven that he was a good person. He had shown Keith that he was trustworthy, even though Lance never demanded to be trusted at all.

“What? I´m just as confused as you are.”, he lied.  
Hunk nudged his shoulder with a sad grin. “I believe it. Lance is the best human being anyone could ever be lucky enough to meet.”  
Lance coughed in embarrassment and bumped Hunk into the side.  
“What?! It´s true!” Despite his joking exclamation, Hunk was a bit startled at the sudden contact with Lance. But maybe he had expected something like this. He knew Lance best, after all.

“What? You mean, Lance, the ghost Lance, can interact with us?”, Nyma asked disbelievingly, but was interrupted by Lance who made himself known to her.  
He hesitated, but only Keith noticed, of course. Before he put his palm on her shoulder, avoiding her unseeing eyes, he visibly fought with himself, whether or not this was a good idea.

Nyma froze on the spot, puffy eyes swelling with tears. Had she been crying before?  
“So- it´s true then. He´s dead?”

Everyone had known this. And yet, a heaviness settled over them that was yet unrivaled.  
They looked at Keith, as though waiting for an answer. Though it was obvious.  
Keith tried, but failed not to feel guilty (for no reason) under their gaze.  
“Yes, I think so.”

“Why haven´t you reported this to the police?”, Nyma´s face turned sour, as she stomped towards him. “Why haven´t you told them where he is? Why-”

“I wanted to, I really did.”, Keith did not let her finish. His shoulder sagged as he threw arms up in a wild gesture.  
“I tried to tell you guys what happened, but as you know, nobody believes me.  
Lance told me, he didn´t remember where or how he died. So I don´t know where his body is. I have asked everyone in town where they last saw him. But nobody seems to know. And when I asked you, you had nothing better to do than insult me. I didn´t know that he could touch people then.  
So, sorry, but I cannot exactly go to the police, tell them a random guy I barely spoke to is missing, when nobody missed him, without knowing where the corpse is. What did you expect me to do? Even Coran could not have done anything for me.”

Nyma was taken aback by this, much like the rest of the small group.  
Even Rolo, who was the only one who had not tried talking to Lance. He was also the only one who Lance had not touched yet, so he was left in the dark. His judgmental glare hanging heavily over them.

“Who is Coran?”, Hunk asked confused. “Allura´s uncle.”, Keith responded. At the lack of response and intensified confusion, he added: “an old medium who died ten years ago and forces me to help ghosts move to the after life.  
It´s not important. Now, we need to find his body. What are you guys waiting for?”

The silence stretched.  
“I still don´t believe anything you just said. But i´ll go with you. Lance may be an idiot, but he WAS my friend. I owe him as much.”, Rolo finally spoke up. Sighing, as he still rubbed the part of his chest, were Keith had punched him earlier.

The rest just looked at each other as they decided, collectively with a nod, that it was time to follow him.  
Only Lance looked as though he rather wanted to stay. Keith was about to ask him what was wrong, but decided against it. Otherwise, they may never find his body.  
And then - then Lance could never move on.  
The mere thought hit him like a brick wall. So – there was no way around it anymore, was there?  
Lance was bound to this earth by the finding of his body. Keith tried to ignore this fact, but it would haunt him for the whole way that they were approaching from now on.

They moved through the schools corridors like warriors on a mission. The bell rang, minutes after, but they ignored it.  
No teacher came to stop them. A real testimony to their school system, really.

Pidge looked skeptical and tired and high on coffee, but she did not say anything.  
In fact, none of them did.  
Hunk and Rolo were leading the way. Keith and Lance were the ones behind.  
Lance looked sad. Ashamed even. Keith tapped on his shoulder, as he could not handle the guilty twist in his gut.  
“Lance? Is everything alright?” At this point, he did not care that his actions caused the other people in the group to shiver.

“I´m. Just.”, Lance started, unsure what to say.  
“It´s okay, Lance. You can say it.”, Keith assure him, worried. Lance would not lie to him. Not now. Not, when they were so close. “I´m sorry, Keith. I have something to confess.”  
“Confess?”

“I- I lied. I know exactly how I died and where my corpse is.”  
Keith´s mouth opened in surprise, but he did not respond.

“I just- I didn´t want to worry anyone. I thought it would be fine, if they just found me on their own. But then, nobody came searching for me. And I thought – I don´t know what I thought. I wanted them to find me? But I also didn´t. I just didn´t want someone, who is practically a stranger to find me, because I told him where to search. I just-”, he stopped, getting confused in his own explanation.  
Keith nodded, but bit his lip.  
“It doesn´t matter now. I don´t know what is going on inside of your head, but I understand it´s important and you had your reasons. No need to worry, ok?!”

Lance chuckled at that and Keith managed to smile.  
“What did he say?”, Hunk asked from the front. He was twitching in his movements, as soon as they reached the woods behind the massive school building.  
“Nothing important. Just that he remembers where his body his.”, Keith lied and earned a surprised look from Lance.

“And why only now?”, Rolo crossed his arms in front of him, looking suspicious.  
“I´d say, the surroundings may trigger some kind of memory?”, Keith guessed wildly. Almost convincing even Lance. Which was a ridiculous thought in itself.

Hunk turned around. “Where? Let him lead the way.”  
Keith nodded and looked at Lance expectantly. Lance sighed and sped up. “After me”, Keith said and followed Lance on his heels.

…..

The further they moved into the woods, the darker it seemed to get. Of course, it was merely the trees that were blocking all of the light from the sun. Still, the sudden cold caught most of them off guard.

But Lance did not stop walking. In fact, the farther they went in, the faster he became.  
“Keith, slow down. Please.”, Pidge huffed, forgetting that Keith was not their leader today.  
“Lance, wait, please..”, Keith gasped for Lance, as he started jumping forward.  
“I- sorry, I -”

Suddenly the bushes disappeared and in front of them was the old school yard. Abandoned, rusty objects that reminded you more of art than the promise of adventures for children were scattered over the whole area.  
But neither of them had time to look around.

It was the swing set, that kept all of them occupied.  
“That´s-”, Hunk started. He did not move. Neither did the rest of them.  
“I´ll, I´ll call the police...”, Rolo whispered and turned around, phone already in hand.

Keith stepped forward. Lance´s ghost was blocking his way, but Keith could see it anyway.  
Someone had broken the chains of the swing set. It was wrapped tightly around the metal pipe that the tires were supposed to hang off from.  
The other side was tied to a knot. Hanging from that was the body of a teenage boy. Eyes pale, lips blue from the lack of oxygen, eyes turned inside it´s holes, the limp body of Lance McClain looked weak and tired. And very – very dead.  
And finally, the dark shadow on Lance´s neck made sense. They were bruises. From the struggle of hanging loose. Of trying to get out of there.

“Holy shit - Lance.”, Hunk sobbed behind them. Tears falling freely towards the ground.“Lance?”,  
Keith was the first to recover. After all, this was not his first corpse. They usually barely mattered in his cases anyway.  
But suicide?

He looked at Nyma, who was frozen in shock, until she stumbled back in fear. “This is my fault.”, she whispered, not knowing how wrong she was.  
Lance spared her but a single glance, as he turned to Keith, eyes firm.

Keith stared at him, eyes wide, disbelief flooding through his veins dancing with his blood. The tingling sensation causing a tingling sensation in his gut.

“ you killed yourself?”

Lance closed his eyes.

\-----------------------

 

_Saturday_

_It was barely three am, when Lance woke up._  
_And no, this was not the usual time he woke up. No matter the circumstances. Well, almost no matter. Only that this time, he would have preferred sleep anyway._

 _Ever since he broke up with Nyma, he had been feeling numb and empty inside._  
_But his mom had woken him up anyway. Well, to her defense, she did bot know about their relationship._  
_“Lance! The hospital just called.” The panic in her voice was all he needed to hear to instantly come to his senses. And rise to his feet._

 _It had been like this for the past three years or so. In a couple of months, the state of his sister had gone from ´she´s probably going to wake up soon´ to `We´re surprised she´s still alive´._  
_Whenever either of that happened, his mom got a call. She would be distraught for at least two month´s after. Not eating, not drinking, taking on another part time job and so on._  
_This time, however, Lance knew it was worse. Three month ago, it almost seemed like she would be fine. But about a week ago, things had changed._

 _That was around the same time, Lance´s Mom let that awful Sendak guy into their life´s. Whenever he saw his mother worried over Veronica, Sendak convinced her to stay at home._  
_´Her daughter needed a mom who could stay calm´, he´d say._

_Veronica´s current condition was sudden. And Lance could not help but blame Sendak for it. Lance was convinced Veronica needed love to wake up, because he was a romantic like that. At least she needed her mom._

_However, as stated already, it was three am. Sendak was out cold and Lance´s mother could not think of anything but Veronica right now. She did not bother to wake him. Thankfully._

_Since she did not have a driver´s license and they basically lived next to the hospital, both of them took their stuff and ran all the way over._

_Of course, his siblings were with them. Except for the youngest one._  
_Marco was a little older than two and a half. When the accident occurred, Lance´s mom had been pregnant._  
_Because destiny is a bitch._  
_But he was too young to understand what was going on or why he shared his father´s name. It would have been too much to carry him. Sendak would have to take care of him. No matter, if Lance like the idea or not._

 _The other McClains, however, Nadia and Claus, were old enough to come with them._  
_And the hospital was expecting them already._  
_Veronica´s stats had dropped again. But by the looks of the doctor, it managed to be even worse than usual._  
_“How bad is it?”, his mom asked. Because it was all she could ask._

 _“I´m – I´m sorry, Mrs. McClain. She´s getting worse.”_  
_The doctor was in a hurry himself. He was not the only one. Lance could already hear the frantic beeping sound of the ECG that displayed Veronica´s heartbeat, all the way back to this floor._  
_He was no medical examiner but Lance knew, that a heart rate like could not be good. It was fast, stumbling over itself and in no way as steady as a heartbeat should be._

 _Soon they were alone again, as the doctor trusted, that they knew where to go. While the doctor himself had to get ready for surgery._  
_Right next to the surgery room, which happened to be only one or two rooms next to Veronica´s, on the cold, blue painted corridor, was a room observation. To supervise what happens to the patient through a window._  
_Usually medicine students or doctors (for second opinions) were allowed in there. But Mrs. McClain had insisted that they could watch them._  
_Her pleading had only come to an end, when Sendak had talked and most likely bribed the hospital to let her do as she pleases._

_A nurse was already waiting for them. Calm and collected as a nurse should be, but also empathetic to their situation, while Veronica was moved into the room on the other side of that cursed window._

_“She´s hyperventilating, Mrs. McClain. Her brain has started bleeding again.”, the nurse explained, leaving Mrs. McClain no time to scream at her. Like first time, when the doctor made the mistake not to tell her anything._  
_Privacy of the patient be damned._

 _Lance stared through the tainted window (they were tainted on one side, so the doctors wouldn´t see them. To prevent any kind of disturbances, the room was also sound proof). His sister looked as though she was already dead._  
_Perhaps she was, or would be soon. The car accident had caused a fatal brain injury that caused her brain to swell. And that was as much information as Lance understood._  
_To him, it sounded like she was brain-dead._

 _It was hectic and dramatic to just stand there and wait for anything to happen. Absurd, really, watching your sister or relative die. And even worse, Lance was so used to this, he barely felt anything. Perhaps he was already used to the thought of loosing her._  
_Maybe he just wanted it to be over. So his sister would be free and his mom could finally move on. Or his heart was not ready to accept the facts yet. Then again, the day of the accident, he had been crying all night._  
_Even if Veronica were to wake up, she would be unable to do or say anything._

 _Lance hated to say it, but perhaps Sendak was right and they should cut off the life support._  
_However, that was his mom´s decision to make. And he was glad it was not his._

 _It was still quiet in the room, as Mrs. McClain was unable to contain her tears. She tried to force herself anyway. Unable to talk._  
_Lance shared a look with his siblings. They were feeling like he was, he knew it. Their mom was the one hurting the most. And they had to be there for her, no matter what._

 _Time moved forward and the anticipation kept the adrenaline high._  
_Still, Nadia and Clause both fell asleep eventually. Lance was stressed, so was his mother, but he could not join them. Usually stress would tire him out to the point, where he would fall asleep, even if he was exercising at the moment._

_Standing here, he had all the time in the world to think about what happened with Nyma. And no matter how bad he felt for the fact that his brain went to that place at all, he kind of came to the conclusion to his feelings._

_Beside visions of his sister dying in front of him, he remembered how paranoid and afraid Nyma had been. And he knew that it was not completely her fault. Not completely, it still hurt and was absolutely unfair to him._

_But, and that was the scary thing, he was not angry at her. He was angry at Lotor, of course. But he knew he had forgiven Nyma the moment he had opened that door. Already expecting what awaited him. He knew Nyma. For some reason that made it worse._

_Lance hated himself for that. For forgiving her. And confused, because he was also glad their relationship was over. Relieved, even._  
_Perhaps all the depression, the forced happiness had gotten him down. Next to the stress he had from hiding his families condition in school. There was no one he could talk to about this anyhow. He did not even know anyone whose parents died, even one of them. Or their siblings. Divorces were the maximum he ever encountered. Perhaps that was why he felt so drawn to Nyma in the first place?_  
_The thought disgusted Lance. He felt his heart turn an twist at the regret that settled in him. Was he himself just using her? If so, he had not noticed._

_Lance´s vision focused on his sister again. And, he felt bad. Because he should not be distracted right now. He should think on his pain and fear of loosing her. But here he was, waiting and failing for his concentration to stay in the room. His mind focusing in and out, while he tried to make sense of himself and feeling selfish for doing so._

_“Lance? Honey. You look tired. Can you take your brother and sister and go home?”, his mom interrupted his thoughts._  
_Lance looked up. He was, in fact, tired. The clock said it was 7 am. They had been waiting for four hours now. The doctors still rushing around the living corpse that was his sister._  
_Still. His mom was sending them home earlier than expected._

 _“Are you sure?”, Lance asked, still worried for his mom. She had calmed down a little, even though her eyes were still fixed on her dying daughter._  
_“Yes.”, she said, voice hoarse and Lance nodded. “And Lance.”, finally she turned around. Lance stopped in his position._

 _“Tell Harold not to wait for me.”_  
_Lance sighed, a little disappointed. Despite not knowing why. “How long do you plan on staying?”_  
_“Until they´re done messing with her.”, she whispered. Lance nodded._  
_He woke up his siblings and told them it was time to leave._

 _And as before, it did not take long for them to get home. Lance put on some hot cocoa, and made sandwiches for them._  
_Which, of course, nobody touched._  
_Except for Sendak, who walked down the stairs about an hour later._  
_Of course, he was a morning person. The McClains never were. He almost chirped, as he bit into the tuna sandwich, Lance had made especially for Nadia. It was her favorite._

 _Sendak stopped in front of them. It took only a minute or so, for him to draw the connection behind their sleep deprived states and the lack of greeting._  
_“Your mother is at the hospital again, right?”, he asked, voice more annoyed than concerned._

 _“Yes.”, Lance answered for his siblings._  
_“Alright. Since when are you up?”_  
_“3 am.”, he shortly replied._

 _“Kay- I suppose, you guys should go to bed then.”, Sendak sighed and shushed Lance and his siblings into their rooms._  
_Hesitant and void of emotion, they followed his request in silence._

 _Sendak shut the door behind Lance last. But it did not keep him in there for long. Mostly because he heard another door shutting down stairs._  
_Curious, unable to sleep and still wary of his mom´s boyfriend, Lance went back to the kitchen._

 _A second later, he saw the car driving off their front yard through the window. Was Sendak going after his mom? Right, Lance should have told him not to wait for her, as she had asked him to._  
_But then, he noticed the car was driving past the road it´d usually take, if you went to the hospital. Who´d even use the car for a five minute walk, anyway?_

 _Where was he going then? He followed him outside, watching the car turning at the next crossroad._  
_That was, when he recognized the local Newspaper on their doorstep. It was obvious that someone had picked it up, only to open it, grab it way too tightly and toss it back on the steps. At least that was what Lance imagined by the condition the paper was in._

 _Could Sendak not have taken it inside? Then he saw the article on the front page. “Owner and wife of the local pub “Galra”, found dead.”_  
_Lance froze. Were that not Lotor´s parents? And were the two of them not friends with Sendak? He started reading the article, suspicion growing with his hectic mind._

**The popular and famous owner of the local pub, Zarkon G. Daibazal and his wife Haggar were found dead by their son.**   
**According to an anonymous witness, they supposedly killed each other about a private affair. -**

_Lance stopped reading. Zarkon. The Galra pub. Sendak mentioned them sometime, did he not?_  
_So this is where he went!_

 _Lance took a deep breath. He considered, should he follow him?_  
_After all, his mother wanted him home, where she knew he´d be safe. But then again, Sendak should be there for her too. On the other hand, Lance was curious. And he really needed a change of mind right now. His mom would not even notice until she herself returned. Which could take a while. She´d probably sleep in the hospital again. Like she used to do sometimes, when she felt particularly afraid for Veronica._  
_And Sendak was the one who should be taking care of her right now!_

 _The bar was not far from here, Lance decided, as he took his bike._  
_Yet again, he took a deep breath, before he followed in the very same direction, he had tried to escape from two days prior._

 _While he drove, a thought occurred to him. Should he consult Rolo about this? He used to be friends with Lotor, right?_  
_Lance decided against it. Something told him that it would be weird for him to call Rolo over this._

 _So he navigate his way past the small mountains that lead downtown. It may be exhausting, especially according to the lack of sleep he had on his record and the hurry was in. He was, in fact, following a car, after all. But his curiosity beat the tiredness._  
_When he finally arrived, he was instantly reminded of something._  
_Already in prepare, were people dressed up in rainbow colors and different flags. Coloring up their houses in support for pride month, while next to them, opposing idiots were trying to take them down._  
_Lance smiled painfully at the sight. Knowing fully well that it was difficult for anyone to show their faces in these marches tonight. With all those homophobes and transphobes and what not around._

 _Not many people attended those marches. At least not here. And those who did wore masks. And went home in small groups afterwards. Only two years ago, one or two people had died because they wore pink eyeliner. It was far too frightening to go home alone._  
_This event was dangerous. And Lance far too scared to attend. Even though he´d like to someday._  
_The police was doing their best, but as so often, it was not enough. He shook his head, this was not the time._

 _Even though, Sendak was one of the opposing party. And he was not exactly kind. Lance felt uncomfortable around him, every time he mentioned the parade. Only, however, when his mom was not around._  
_Lance´s mom was probably his only support. He knew she would be on his side, if he ever came out. Sometimes she acted as though she already knew. Perhaps she did. Or suspected it. After all, his family was spread all across the country. And tolerance was the least he was afraid of, if it came to them. Only that he did not like the attention._

_He´d prefer if people stopped assuming._

_His internal monologue was soon interrupted as Lance reached the Galra pub._  
_A few police cars were still there. Blue and green cars, with sirens. In giant, white letters, stood POLICE on their door. Did people not know what a police car was? Did they have to write it on the cars? If the thought this would help people who could not read or were blind, then newsflash, that´s rubbish._

 _Anyhow, they found the corpses yesterday. What was the police still doing here?_  
_Perhaps they were not quite done with the investigation? Would Sendak interrupt them? Lance had a feeling, that if Sendak knew about the police cars, he would not be here. Then again, his car was also parked on the front lawn of the pub._  
_As he turned around the corner, his suspicions were proven correct, as he heard something._

_When Lance saw Sendak, right next to Lotor and a few other people who clearly belonged to the police, something inside his stomach turned. Lotor, was a tall man around the age of twenty. His dark skin contrasted the whiteness of his long hair that hang loosely around his, admittedly handsome face. He was a man of style and wealth. At his young age, he wore leather jackets with chains attached to them. It explained, why he used to be friends with Keith Kogane. They were equally emo._

_“I assure you, Lotor has nothing to do with their death. Now, let him alone to grief, please.”_

_Lance hurried to get his bike away from the road, as he hid himself in the corner behind a container that was conveniently placed right next to him._  
_Why he´s hiding? Simply, because the police officers excused themselves and came his way. Also, he didn´t think he´d ever heard Sendak being protective. He did not trust it. It would be better if he stayed unseen._

 _He held his breath. Praying, not to be discovered._  
_If god does exist, he listened to Lance. And heard him thank him after the police walked straight passed him. Lance exhaled the deep breath he´d been holding and leaned forward, to look behind the corner._

 _“What were you thinking?”, Sendak slapped Lotor lightly on his head. Just like a scolding father would. For a second, Lance wondered why. Lotor, however seemed to know what Sendak (who managed to be even taller than Lotor, I mean, how?) was playing at._  
_“What the hell, man. I did NOT kill them. Even that weirdo from school agreed.”_

 _“Well, you´re lucky he did. He could have said whatever he wanted and that stupid Coran idiot would have believed him._  
_Seeing ghosts. We should charge that officer for his poor judgement.”_

_“Well, you could. But that would mean you´d have the other police officers on to you. Besides, it´s not like anything Keith said was wrong.”, Lotor crossed his arms with a pout. Lance blinked. Keith? Keith Kogane? Was working with the police? Lance agreed with Sendak. That did sound ridiculous. Keith was a teenager for god´s sake._

_“My parents did hate each other enough to murder each other. And the reasoning sounded plausible as well. Their arguments have been the same ever since that Lance guy walked in on me with his girlfriend. Stupid girl. If she had a boyfriend ready to help her, she should have rejected me.”, Lance opened his mouth to say something, until he remembered that he was currently in hiding. And should probably refrain from doing so._

_Sendak rolled his eyes._  
_“It doesn´t matter. But now, you cannot draw any attention to yourself. I told you I don´t care what you do in your private life before, but-”_

_“You´re right, Harold. It does not matter, because it is my private life. And since my mom and dad died, there is nothing I need you to hide from them.”_

_Sendak smirked, while the confusion in Lance grew. Lance leaned forward again, to make sure he understand anything they whispered. Because Sendek bowed over Lotor, making sure to keep eye contact. Lotor did not flinch, but stood upright, facing him with as much dignity as a guy like him could mutter. (Meaning, a lot.)_

_“Not from them. But all those girls, you´re “convincing” to get with you may be a bit – let´s say, disappointed by what you put into those drinks.”_

_Lotor growled. Which was probably a good thing, since Lance gasped, not exactly quiet, as he almost tripped and revealed himself. Almost._  
_Sirens ringed in his head, alarming him to do something. Anything. It clearly sounded, like both of them were down to some shady business._  
_He took out his phone. May it be morally wrong, but if Lance was about to get proof for whatever those two did, then damn hell, he´d take it. So he started recording._

_“So, you´re resolving to blackmail me again. Very smart, Sendak. Just that I don´t put anything in anyone´d drinks. I may have taken drugs once or twice. That doesn´t indicate I do that to women, you know.”_

_“Oh I know. But who would believe you?”, Sendak´s smirk grew._

_“I mean. Your parents mysteriously killed each other for a ridiculous reason._  
_I have proof, you´ve hidden drugs from them._  
_And then, that incident on Thursday with your little hook up. Who – let´s say, happened to be drunk. You don´t have friends, Lotor. You´ve betrayed too many of them before.” Lotor lowered his head and bit his lip, while Sendak shamelessly continued._

 _“You know fully well that is not -”, but Lotor´s defense was interrupted._  
_“The weird kid, Keith may be on your side, for all I´ve heard from the police, but that guy has hallucinations. He´s crazy. His credibility in shreds. People may start to believe you´ve drugged him as well. Just saying. There is a reason why they call him an anonymous witness.”_

_“What do you want from me?!”, Lotor said through gritted teeth._

_“I want you keep running the pub. And I want the profit to land on my bank account.”_  
_“And how would I explain that to my lawyer or any sane person?”_  
_“Oh, you´ll figure something out. If worse comes to worst, I´ll even sign adoption papers, if I so have to.”_

 _Lotor scoffed. Almost spat at Sendak. “You. My father? No thanks, I just got freed from the last piece of garbage that called himself that!_  
_You can have the money, I´ll make an excuse or whatever. But leave me alone with family business.”_

_“Can´t argue with that. Just make a good excuse and you won´t have to worry about that.”, Sendak smiled. God how he hated that smile._

_“You could just buy the bar, you know? I don´t want it either way.”, Lotor murmured, perhaps more to himself than Sendak. But he answered anyway._  
_“And having to run it completely by myself? Giving you money? No way. Besides, it would look a bit odd, if I were to buy a bar, right after their owner´s died. Murder is not exactly helping any kind of business.”_

 _“More like you´d need money to buy it. What happened to that great business you have?”, Lotor looked up, anger still lingering in his eyes. Sendak´s eyes narrowed, his grin turning into an evil frown._  
_“Oh, the business is fine. It does not concern you. You´re gonna take my offer, or what?”_

 _Lotor sighed. “Offer? Really? That´s what you call it?_  
_Whatever. Just send me the paperwork, as soon as you can. So much to selling this rat hole.”_

_“Good, now if you excuse me, I have a hospital to visit.”_

_With that, Sendak turned away, while Lance hurried to disappear into the container. At the same time he made sure to save the video._  
_The problem was, the movement was loud. And unplanned. So, Lance was 90 % sure, Sendak must have at least noticed him. Or someone must have, according to the yelp he made. Why was he even jumping into the container? He could have just done the same thing he did with the police officers. Only that the container stood next to Sendak´s car. Lance would have been seen, no matter where he hid. The only side he would have been save from him, would have been the one that stood far too close to the next brick wall._

 _Five minutes of silence, except for the rapid beating of his heart. And a car, one which he recognized as Sendaks, sped up, only to disappear into distance. For barely a second, Lance felt safe._  
_However, as Lance jumped out the pile of trash, his earlier suspicion was proven correct._  
_Someone did notice his escape attempt. Lotor stared at him, when he stumbled out of the container. He seemed, hopefull? Until he recognized the person in front of him._

 _“You!”, Lotor paled as recognition dawned in his eyes._  
_And Lance? For a beautiful moment he had forgotten that Lotor was not just a victim. He was the guy Nyma cheated on him with._

 _Lance´s mood turned sour._  
_Lotor looked like he wanted to throw his whole life away, at this point. “Fuck. Of course it´s you.”, he considered for a moment, waiting for his brain to come up with an appropriate solution._  
_So he offered Lance the first one that came to mind._

 _“What do you want for that video? You´re not going to delete it because of – you know, right?”, Lotor, fidgety and scared, truly was a sight to behold._  
_“So, you noticed me filming you?”, Lance said, unsure of how to proceed. He could, indeed, ask Lotor for any kind of favor, if he wanted to. And he considered. He really did._

 _“Yeah, anyone would have. Except for Sendak, of course. Man I hate him._  
_You could have exploded a bomb and he would not have noticed.“_  
_Lotor sighed, stopping himself. As though he was punishing himself mentally for everything that had put him in this mess._

 _Lance, however, had made his decision, the moment Lotor had opened his mouth._  
_“Give me your phone.”, Lance said. Certainty painting his voice._

_Lotor opened his mouth to respond. “Huh?”, he asked surprised._

_“You want the video, right? I´ll send it to you.”_

_Lotor blinked. Suspicion growing with the shadows under his eyes. “You want my number? Wait – what´s the catch? What do you get?”_  
_Lance sighed. “Do you want the video or not?”_  
_“Of course, I do. You basically have proof to him blackmailing me on there. Still, you have no reason to help me out. You obviously want something! What is it?”_

 _Lance sighed. “For one, I´m not actually mad at you.” Lotor´s entire face squinted in disbelieve at him._  
_“Ok. Scratch that, I totally am. And I blame you. For all that went down with Nyma. But, this is not about me or Nyma. This is about Sendak and the chance to finally let my mom see sense about him. He´s a criminal and he needs to be charged for his crimes. Also, I doubt that my word alone would be enough to go after my mom´s boyfriend.”_

 _Lotor visibly paled at the last words. As though he had heard something like this before._  
_“Let me guess, he ignores all of you except your mom and uses her to never pay rent? While his company makes millions and he uses the money for lottery and bets?”, he carefully asked._

 _“How do you know that? Wait, what was the last part? Bets?”, Lance asked surprised._  
_“Yeah, shocking, am I right? The guy is an addict. Anyway, the Galra bar is the place he usually places his bets. That´s why he has it out on me. He owes me money.”_

 _“Alright then... Wait a second. People were telling me, he´s rich? I´ve never heard of those debts.”, Lance wondered out loud, as Lotor handed him his phone, so Lance could give him his number._  
_“He is. Well – kind of rich. He steals small amounts of money of other peoples bank accounts, when he gets access to it. And he´s not exactly bragging about his financial problems.”_

_“But, he´s paying for my sister´s hospital visit?”, Lance whispered, more to himself than Lotor, who raised an eyebrow in suspicion._

_“I´d be careful then. I don´t know about your sister, but better get her out soon. And I mean, as soon as possible. He probably took on a credit on your moms name. I heard his last girlfriend is still fighting bankruptcy because he bought her a car from her own money.”_

_Lance kept silent for a bit._  
_“I clearly doubt that´s possible.”, he said. Lotor laughed. “Well, you better believe me. There are many ways to fake a signature. And people change their signs all the time. It´s not like anyone checks it anyway.”_

 _“No, I know. I mean, it´s not possible to get my sister out of the hospital.” Lance stopped himself as he saw Lotor´s confused frown._  
_“Well, not now. She´s been on life support for almost three years. She´s dying, we cannot bring her home.”, Lance already regretted talking about this. It was too much information for a guy like Lotor._  
_Lotor´s expression did not change as he answered. “She´s important to you, I guess?”_

_Lance nodded. And for the first time, he saw a change of light in Lotor´s eyes. Some kind of empathy, probably nobody had ever seen on him. It made Lance feel weirdly special. But also impossibly uncomfortable._

_“I see.” Lance gave him back his phone. In silence, they exchanged numbers and Lance send the video feat._

_“You should definitely send this to the police.”, Lance murmured, while Lotor watched the video in silence._

_“I´d love to. The thing is, Sendak may expect something like this to happen. He may find a way to hack my phone and edit it. Then the proof would be tainted. Also, he has a lot of stuff on me. This may not be enough to take him down._  
_Can´t like – you do it? I don´t know how well your mom is with your paper work at home, but if you look up the transactions he´s made... Maybe you´ll get even more proof. That would help the both of us.”_

_“It´s worth a shot, I suppose. But I doubt we´ll get anywhere, if you don´t testify.”, Lance said, still concerned._

_“Oh, I will.”, Lotor nodded at him. He seemed relieved. Though doubting Lance´s initiative in this matter. So he chose his next words carefully._  
_“And, I guess, I still owe you an apology for your girlfriend. I´m really sorry.”, he was about to go on, but Lance knew what he was about to say._  
_,If I had known her boyfriend was so chill´ or ,if I had known she had a boyfriend´, were just not going to cut it. Lotor practically forced her into prostituting herself. There was no excuse for that. So he stopped Lotor instead._

_“Just, don´t mention it anymore, alright? Better even, don´t ever do it again.”_

_It worked. Lotor stopped. “Good, ehm. I´ll go back inside. You do whatever you´re gonna do. The police is still here, so Sendak is going to feel safe for a while. Taking, he doesn´t know you´re here.”_  
_Lotor looked at him questioningly. Almost with a warning that said, ,don´t tell him´ and ,don´t get caught´ at the same time._

_Lance shook his head. “He doesn´t. I´ll go see if I find more proof. You´re right. It would be better to get as much as we can. I´ll text you as soon as possible. Don´t raise suspicion to yourself until I do.”, Lance said slowly, as he thought about what action was best to take now._

_“Same to you, be careful.”, Lotor said and waved as he went back inside.”I don´t know how far he´d dare to go.”_  
_Lance nodded, more to himself than his odd partner in crime. A moment later he grabbed his bike and drove all the way back where he came from. The look he send Lotor was their last exchange. But at this point, neither of them knew._

 _Though one thing stuck with him – something that didn´t fit into the entire puzzle he was trying to solve. It was a small thing. That probably barely mattered. But it remained on his mind anyway. What had Keith Kogane to do with anything? Where did he play into this story?_  
_Was this a sign? An omen? If so, he did not know what to make of it._

\--------------------------------------------------------

 

Lance did not answer. Did he kill himself? Was that a serious question? Though he understood where it came from.

“Guys? The police will be here soon.”, Rolo reminded them from behind.

“Lance? Please, can you explain what happened? “, Hunk whined. Desperate to get an answer. To finally lift this mysterious cloud that hang over them.

Lance sighed, while Keith waited for his answer.

“Now, I did not.”, Lance confessed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thank you for the nice comments I´ve received so far XD 
> 
> There are two more chapters and round About 25 pages I have yet to correct D: And rewrite the entire ending, because it´s not dramatic enough lol XD
> 
> Also, I did a drawing for the Scene in school, where Lance and Keith meet for the first time.  
> https://changelink.tumblr.com/post/184164806084/i-think-i-mentioned-it-before-i-am-currently
> 
> Just in case, you´re interested how I imagined this Scene, initially. (I drew the Picture before I wrote it, so it´s not accurate. Words are such feeble Things.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so happy how this turned out D:  
> Finally some romance, heck yeah. (Took me Long enough, lol)

“ _No, I did not_.”, Lance confessed.  
How was this a confession?  
“What?”, Keith´s eyes widened and caused Lance to laugh at the bizarre response. “Why are you so shocked? Shouldn´t you be glad I didn´t do it?”  
“But it´s an obvious suicide! If you didn´t kill yourself, then-”  
Hunk interrupted him.

“He didn´t? Lance! What happened?” Right, Keith was the only one capable of listening.  
Kind of ironic.

Lance sighed, as Hunk stared at Keith. Apparently the guy was now his new voice.  
“I guess it will look like suicide to everyone. Everyone but me and the guy who will be held responsible for it.”, Lance started and Keith´s eyes widened.

“The guy responsible? But who-”

“Lotor is innocent. No matter what they may tell you.” Keith was caught of guard.

“Keith? Can you please tell us what he´s saying? I´m dying over here.”, Pidge groaned. She was standing close behind him, shivering in her position.

She did not mention how odd it was to her that Keith stood so close to the corpse. What about decency?

“Oh right, sorry.”, he responded to the voiced question.  
“He says, Lotor is involved. You know the pub owner of the Galra? That guy who spread the rumor of me being a ghost whisperer? We used to be friends, I mentioned him once.”, Keith explained, eyes traveling between all of them.

Only Nyma seemed to recognize the name, as she gasped in shock and fear. In general, she already looked like a kicked puppy, ready to run anytime now.  
“But, according to Lance, Lotor did not murder him.”  
He then continued to repeat everything Lance said as best as he could, while Nyma slowly released the breath she was holding.

“This corpse will be analyzed by the police soon. They´ll find out how I died. But they will probably believe it was suicide, caused by immense drug use.  
They will find drugs in both my pockets as well as my stomach.”, Lance stopped at the memory that was suddenly clouding his vision. Flashing in his mind, clear as photographs.  
And yet, he was the only one who saw them.

_He remembered searching for papers at home._   
_He remembered finding the case Sendak hid in their garage. The stall they only used to put old belongings in. Well, until Sendak came into their life´s and used it for his car._

_It had taken Lance a solid three hours to crack the code to open it, trying each possible combination. And obviously, he had to start with four zeros, working himself up._   
_He´d been patient and it payed off._   
_When he opened the case, he found transaction papers. Various families who “donated” to his company._   
_He saw where he put his own money. Who he payed for what reason. How he corrupted everyone, especially his company, that was listed as ,charity organization´. He found old files on crime scenes from the past. Some more recent than the others. They were put in an old scrapbook. Someone, most likely Sendak had written comments on the pages. But the comments itself sounded, like he used them for writing purposes. Or as though he wanted to find out what happened himself. If Lance did not know better._   
_One of them stood out most to him. The article must be about ten years old. In bright red and circles, the word ,medium´ was marked. Giant question marks next to it._

Lance shook his head. Now that he thought about it, the girl on the article looked vaguely familiar.

“Sendak, my moms boyfriend, was in debt. Still is, as much as I figured out. He regularly looses money. And uses his companies money for it.  
His company is as good as bankrupt, while he saves money on his own account. His girlfriends are only a distraction to keep up his facade. He pretends to buy them everything they ever wanted, while secretly hacking their bank accounts and robbing them.  
He gets off without ever paying rent. As soon as hes done with them, he stays at his friends pub. The Galra pub, by the way.

If anyone, ever, got too close to the truth, they mysteriously would disappear or die in an accident or something like that. I found old Newspapers and I am fairly certain that he has something to do with them.  
I´m afraid, that he would even go so far, to kill of the husband of some people first, before even coming to town. He does that with certain, wealthy people. I know he has connections. Whatever happened, he was marked as clean. Too clean, if you ask me.

About the Galra. I have talked to Lotor and he has told me what Sendak did to him.  
Lotor took drugs with his friends. And somehow, Sendak came to witness that. He stole the money they had on them and made videos and proofs of their actions.

When they woke up, he blackmailed Lotor for money and little conveniences, with the promise of leaving his friends alone. Lotor´s friends all left him, because Sendak made it look like he´d took their money. It´s a bit complicated, since I was not there. You may have to ask Lotor personally.  
But I saw some very confusing video feats that Sendak send Lotor as a thread. But I get what they imply.  
The entire conversation should still be on my phone.

Anyway, when Sendak found me searching for his stuff, he tried blackmailing me as well. When I told him about the video I had, I thought, he´d go mad. But he was so - calm  
Then, he threatened me with something worse.”

Lance took a deep breath, as he stepped forward to his own corpse, not looking at Keith anymore.

Keith stopped talking as well, all eyes on him, while he stared ahead. Being the only one who was not blind to Lance´s tears and the struggle he had with keeping his voice calm.

“In the name and with the money of my mother, he put off a life insurance on me and my siblings. He said, and I quote, that he , _was afraid that anything may happen to us_.´” Lance tried to mimic Sendak´s voice to emphasize how heavy the implications lay.  
, _Our sister was already in the hospital, after all_.´, the police would buy it. He would make sure of that, I´m sure.  
I´m certain we´re not the first family, he pulled that bullshit with.

I told him, it did not matter. I would call the police anyway. I was an idiot to think I could threaten him like that. I just made him angry.  
He then - he fought me to the ground and drugged me.  
That was Sunday evening.”, he did not look at Keith anymore and Keith felt shivers ran down his spine. His mind had not proceeded what this meant, but his gut warned him that he should know. And, as Keith knew his gut, it was probably right.

“I managed to escape on my bike. I guess, luck really was on my side then. Because in my delirious state, I crashed with a car. Who drives that late at night anyway?  
I really should have talked to Shiro then.”

Lance looked at Keith again. A pleading look in his eyes. An unspoken apology written in the heaviness of his voice.  
Keith could not breathe, as realization settled in.

Pidge, the only one there who knew about his relations to Shiro, opened her mouth to say something. But she stopped herself, as she saw that Keith trembled and could not repeat what Lance was saying anymore.  
She did not blame him. This was only between the two of them anyway.  
She gave Hunk a sign to keep quiet. As he seemed desperate to get as much information as possible.  
Nyma and Rolo were being quiet all the way. Eyes fixed on the ever so slightly moving corpse in front of them.  
Maybe, it should be a relieve to Nyma that Lance´s death was not her fault. But it was a given, that this did not make it any better.

“I always hated Shiro for what happened to Veronica.”, Lance admitted, tears running down his face.  
“He always seemed so calm and collected. So that I thought he didn´t even care. That it didn´t matter to him what he did. But when I saw him that night-  
When he stumbled out of that car, he looked down right terrified. I could see, how he was almost ripping off his prosthetic in panic. I realize now that he had an anxiety attac.  
I could basically feel, how the crash brought back the memories. Now that I know he has PTSD, I cannot be more ashamed of myself.

I couldn´t talk to him then. Instead, I turned around. I was originally on the way to the police, but then. I thought of Shiro, how the police would treat him, if they found out he ran me over. I was still on drugs, a part of me thought that maybe Sendak would use this as an excuse and make Shiro responsible for everything that happened.  
The bit of sanity I had left before the drugs actually set in told me to go in the opposite direction and hid where I thought nobody would search for me. And Sendak would be the last to figure it out.

But he tracked my phone. He found me here, pushed me down again. He -”, Lance´s voice was wavering with emotion now.

“He strangled me. On drugs, I could feel it even more. Every cell in my body reacted simultaneously, craving for air and screaming at me. All while he pulled me up that stupid swing set and put the tire around my neck. He heaved me up, as I felt my neck cracking at the intensity of my own weight. I couldn´t move. While I choked to death up there, he deleted the video. He put drugs in my pocket and took my phone.  
I- That is the last thing I remember.”

Yet again, he stopped. Taking one breath after the other. Lost in the memory, lost in the fear. He touched his own neck, even the phantom of a touch sending shivers down his spine. Only now they could actually see the dark bruises in their full glory. Between the marks the tire must have left, you could see how the neck was crooked. As though it was broken. It was the perfect mirror image you could see on his physical form.  
Lance closed his eyes as tears ran down his face.

“I don´t know what he did to the phone. But I´m positive, he´s going to use it as blackmail against Lotor. He´s going to pretend Lotor murdered me and made it look like suicide. I could protect Shiro, but I couldn´t protect Lotor, I´m so sorry.”

He was done now. His last words but a whisper. Shaking with tears and regret. His eyes were still distant, caught in the memory.  
This story was by far the heaviest Keith had ever heard. And he had heard a lot. Keith found himself crying too as he picked up his voice to tell the others how Lance died. He kept the long version for himself. Only telling them about the lost phone and the way Lance was hanged.  
The visual image was too painful to repeat and Keith did not think he could do it justice.

He had not expected Lotor and Shiro to be a part of this story. Mostly because he wanted to exclude Lotor of his life and distance Shiro from any possible harm that may come his way. Much like Lance had.  
Then again, Shiro never told him the truth about the accident. And now he understood why.

Silence settled over the forest as both Lance and Keith were looking at each other with tears in their eyes.  
If the scene was somehow different, with both of them ignoring their audience, it could have been an intimate moment. If only it was not in this context.  
So it was only creepy for the others, seeing a guy talk about a random story about the corpse they just found, all while crying about it.  
It should have been different. Nothing of this should have happened. And anyone in this circle was convinced, they could have done something to prevent it.

And then, Keith went silent. Because, as you may remember, there was something else, he had on his mind. Ever since they got here.  
Only, as silence seemed to stretch endlessly again, he dared to ask.

“Is this it?”, he asked, worry all over his face, causing Hunk, Pidge, Nyma and Rolo to perk up at him.

In the distance, they heard sirens coming closer.  
About time.

“What is what? Is something happening?”, Hunk asked, still scared and just as confused as Lance was.

“Are you going to move on? To the after life? We- we found your body.”, Keith asked. Feeling afraid.

It was strange, but he felt so drawn to this ghost. He knew Lance from when they were younger. The other boy always messing with him, making fun of him.  
And still being kind, when they met on the streets or in class. Perhaps Allura was right. Perhaps the goodness of his heart made objects and people move to his will. Even though Lance did not realize how good of a person he really was.  
But did he really have to die to become his friend? That´s what they were, right? Friends?  
And the fact alone made Keith shiver. He never had a ghost friend beside Allura. The chances were too high for them to just – leave.

Lance coughed, as a smile spread on his face at the shocked looks Keith received.  
“No. I don´t think it´s time for that yet.”

Keith let out a relieved breath and that action alone, relaxed the whole crowd that was standing around the hanging corpse.  
“I take it, he isn´t moving on?”, Pidge asked as the probably only person in the room who knew of the tendency of ghosts to simply disappear after a while.

“I don´t-”, Keith raised an eyebrow at Lance in question, but the ghost in question only shook his head.

“I really don´t want to talk about it. But let me assure you, it has nothing to do with my murder. I´m not here for revenge.”, Lance put his hand on Keith´s shoulder in a gentle gesture.

Keith nodded.  
“Let´s talk about this another time.”, he said. “I´d rather not know anyway. It´s a bit – much.”

Pidge sighed. “Right. Then – how do we get Sendak to confess?”

“How do you get me to confess what?”, a dark voice suddenly appeared out of nowhere.  
Coming all the way from the police station, the police officers navigated their way through the thick leafs and branches. Of course Sendak had to be with them. Or rather the guy, Keith assumed to be Sendak. According to his sudden introduction.

Keith recognized some of the officers as well. Such as Coran, Curtis and Kinkade. And not far behind, Shiro was approaching, along a woman with long brown hair and an expression that made Keith wonder if she had seen a ghost. Then again, that was something that would really throw him off. Then he noticed, she had the same kind eyes as Lance had, the same tanned skin and the same sad look in her eyes.  
She must be his mother. One look at Lance, who was staring ahead in shock and fear at her, proved him right.

Until Keith remembered what the first thing was that she saw as soon as they had reached them. The pain, shock and agony that settled in her features spread like poison through the small group of officers.  
Mrs. McClain stormed over, screaming, while Shiro´s eyes widened in distress and horror.

Sendak stood there, an admittedly convincing horrified expression framing his ignorance. His eyes, however, where not in it. But maybe, Keith only saw that because he had Lance´s statement.

Coran gasped as they all took in the cruel scenery. In front of them, they saw a bunch of children, tears in their eyes standing next to a hanging corpse. Neck broken, eyes glassy, waving in the subtle wind that was the only cause of noise in this exact moment.

A corpse that was their age, who went to their class. The simple fact making them speechless. Even Pidge. And whats worse. All of them knew him personally. At least to some extent.  
For his mother? This must be like entering a nightmare.

“Keith, what are you doing here? What happened to your eye?”, Coran finally asked, sounding as professional as he could, still showing concern for his young partner. And Keith knew that part of his question was actually, “why are there children with you?” Though, he had to admit he had forgotten about the pounding in his head caused by the swelling.

Keith wanted to say something, but Mrs. McClain was screaming at her dead son, trying to rip his body of the tire. She shouted at him to wake up, as everything inside her her rejected the idea of her oldest son dying.  
But Lance was not dying.  
“Fuck.”, Lance whispered and it was almost comical.

“Did he lead you here?”, Coran specified his question.  
Keith sighed. “He did.”, he confirmed and earned a nod from the officer. Coran did not ask why he had not consulted him about this. Maybe he would have at some point, but now was not the time.

“Who lead him here?”, Sendak asked, suddenly confused, as his eyes inspected all of the unknown faces. Keith knew, the man must be afraid that someone might have witnessed what happened. Or was he just asking who found the body?

“Lance, of course.”, Keith explained with no remorse, hate clearly visible. It did not matter whether of not he´d hide this side of him anyway. Not anymore. And Sendak should be afraid.  
“What?”, Sendak´s expression squinted, as he tried to comprehend what Keith meant.

“He means, this boy´s ghost has led him here. Keith is a medium.”, Coran explained and that got Shiro and Mrs. McClain to finally avert their attention from the corpse. Sendak´s eyes widened in response. As though the word struck within him somehow. Any maybe it did.

The officers next to Coran only sighed.  
“Can you please stop this? You´re the only one who believes him. What if he murdered the boy? Anyone here is a suspect. His word is not the only one that counts.”, Curtis hissed, crossing his arms, as he tried to get the remaining kids away from the body. “This is a crime scene, can we please be professional about this?”

That was, when Pidge stepped up.  
“Mr. Coran, Sir, I have a question. Did you receive a phone, perhaps from this guy -”, she pointed at Sendak, “Did he say it belonged to Lance and maybe there were text conversations on it that helped you find this place?”, she wildly guessed.

Curtis opened his mouth, surprise mirrored in his gaze.  
“We did, indeed receive a phone from him. Why are you asking?

Pidge smiled. “There is evidence on that phone that he deleted. If you let me hack the phone I could get it back for you.”

Mrs. McClain´s eyes traveled from her to Sendak, a shocked look on her face. Finally, she let go of her oldest son. “What evidence is she talking about? You cannot be implying that Harold is responsible for this... My boyfriend was with me the whole time, he-”, she said.

Suddenly something was off, Keith felt it, as he Lance finally lifted his hand from Keith´s shoulder. His eyes looked incredulous, disbelieving.

“That´s a lie.”  
There was a disbelieving whisper in the woods. Loud and clear.

When Keith heard it, heard the birds escaping with a shriek from the sound, heard Mrs. McClain stumble back from the corpse and saw Coran visibly flinching, turning around to find the source, he knew what had happened.  
It was the same sound that Lance had produced, when Hunk was about to punch someone.

Sendak visibly paled. His eyes suddenly fixed on the motionless corpse. The shadows on the swollen eyes speaking of a story that he thought was only known to him.  
“Lance?”, Keith turned towards his friend, the question mark might as well be printed on his forehead.

“What? I´ve told her multiple times now, NOT to trust him. He freaking killed me and she just-Speaks for him! Lotor also has the video I took, I have proof! And she´s not even considering? Not even doubting him?”, Lance was shaking again, not noticing how his voice echoed through the forest.

How the witnesses were cowering at the sound. Coran staring at Sendak, whose eyes widened in realization.  
But Lance´s focus was on his mother. She shuddered at the sound of the rumbling voice.

“Lance.”, Keith tried again.

“You didn´t even notice I was gone! What do you think happened to me mom? Do I look like I´m okay to you?”, Lance now directly talked to her, even louder than before.  
His mom – looked right back at him. Well, not exactly at him.

Keith opened his mouth, to say something, but he couldn´t. He was not sure if he saw correctly.

“Pidge? Can – can you see him?”, he asked in a whisper, unsure of himself. Pidge looked at him, slightly surprised. Shrugging with her shoulders, while shaking her head. “But – I – I can hear him.”  
“I´m taking it, you have enough proof now?”, Keith whispered back. Pidge´s eyes peered into his.

Mrs. McClain however, her eyes filled with tears.  
“Lance-” That was, when Keith noticed, she was staring through Lance. Not at him. But she heard him. And she must feel his presence.  
“I never meant to-”

Lance was full on sobbing now. “It took you three days to even notice I was gone! You´re checking on Veronica almost twice a day. Even though it´s getting less too.

But you didn´t even think about me, until Shiro – the guy, as you remember killed my dad, pointed it out to you!  
What is going on in that head of yours?  
When did we even talk last time? When you send me home on Saturday on her death bed?  
Did you know your so called boyfriend was robbing the money you so hard worked for? And blackmailed a boy whose parents just killed each other? Seriously? Do you even notice what´s going on around you anymore? Are you blind? Or do you just not care?!”

He stopped, incredulous that he even managed to say all this. But it was not all. It was just all that mattered.

“I´m so – so sorry.”, she cried. Lance eyes widened, as he realized that she had heard him.  
He turned to Keith, the silent question taking over his features. Keith could only nod and watch as regret settled on Lance´s face. He never lashed out like this before.  
But perhaps all the years of watching his mother suffer and trying to help her out as much as he could had taken a toll on him.

Mrs. McClain was shook to the core as she turned to Sendak, if only to send him a look. It was not a begging kind of look. It was a disgusted one.  
She did not explain herself to Lance. It would not feel right. But she did take actions into her own hand, as she realized how she had taken her sons independence for granted. Him for granted.  
As she realized that her son had always been there for her, without her recognizing it. Realizing it.  
“I should have been a mother to you, Lance.”, she sobbed. “You and your siblings, I-” She could not talk.

Instead, she let actions speak for her.  
She did not wait for Sendak´s defense, as she turned towards Coran.  
“Is the ominous voice of a dead person enough to get him to jail?”, she asked. Suddenly her own voice was void of emotion.

Sendak´s eyes widened. “You cannot be serious. I did NOT kill him! They must be using some recorder or something. I did not -  
I bet it was this Lotor guy! He hooked up with your sons girlfriend -”

“And what would you know?!”, she almost screamed.  
Sendak stopped as he noticed his mistake. As he realized that he should not even know about Lance´s girlfriend. But there was something he did not know.  
Lance shuddered at the shrieking in her voice.

“I – I overheard Lotor talking to one of the officers. I came by as I heard my two friends had died and heard him say something about this girl he hooked up with who happened to have a boyfriend.”

“Alright.”, Lance´s mom glared at him.  
“And who exactly was his girlfriend?”, she asked.

“Well, yeah. That is her.”, he pointed at Nyma, a winning grin on his face. Clearly he was misunderstanding the situation. “He brought her home once, if I remember correctly, right?”

“Only that he never did.”, Mrs. McClain´s eyes turned dark.  
“Huh?”, Sendak blinked.

Nyma stepped from one toe to the other. “He – he made sure neither of you would find out. I never entered your house.”, she admitted and Sendak froze.

Finally, Curtis interrupted them with a cough.  
“May I ask you to stop this conversation until we´re at the precinct? This is a crime scene.  
Also, we´d like all of you to make a statement. If possible, we´d like -”, he turned to Keith in embarrassment.

Only now did it occur to Keith that he as well, must have heard Lance´s words. And while he surely must prefer the version of a hidden recorder that Keith had planted somewhere, it would not explain how the sound of Lance´s voice surrounded them. Causing his fierce disbelief to waver in Keith´s favor.  
“We´d like his statement, too.”  
He pointed at the corpse that was still dangling in the wind.

Keith looked at the ghost version of the corpse, who was still crying.  
“Lance? Are you – are you up to that?”  
Lance wheezed. “I guess I could try.”, he said. The emotion in his voice was ebbing down. Now that he said everything that bothered his heart.

“Isn´t he going to answer?”, Coran questioned. Keith shook his head, surprise in his eyes. They could not hear him anymore?  
A guess manifested on his mind as he realized that perhaps, the ability to talk to the living was strongly connected to Lance´s emotions.  
“Well, he did say, he´ll try. But I suppose you cannot hear him anymore.”

Coran nodded, while Curtis went over to Pidge, bowing down because of the height difference. Pidge growled. She did not like it when people treated her as a child. But in hindsight on their situation. What could she possibly do?

“You said, you could bring back that evidence, right? Can you help us with that?”

Pidge smirked in mock defense. “Sure, nothing easier than that.”

With that the crime scene was cleared.  
The next thing they did, was follow the police to their cars that were parked at the schools front yard. Multiple students were staring through the windows, gossiping about what might have happened. Why the police was here. And so on and so forth.  
If only they´d knew.

 

\--------------------------

 

They found evidence in Sendak´s car.  
Despite his initial belief, Lance had done something to safe Lotor.  
Because the evidence was stuck on the CD in Sendak´s car.

It was Shiro who had mentioned that he had seen Sendak try to pick something out of it only hours prior. He found it suspicious and reason enough to take the risk.  
Curtis had given him an admiring look as it turned out to be the correct guess. And it was not just evidence against Lotor, there was something else on it that Coran would inform Keith of later on.

When Lance heard it, he almost laughed. Almost. If only he was not still emotional about the whole ordeal that is.

His testimony, shortly after, was a bit awkward. He had to write a complete essay, since he was the witness and Keith´s word was not enough to say it was the truth.  
As Lance did not know how to reactivate his voice, they set him up in a room and a piece of paper and a pen, filming the whole thing. Not to mention it must have spooked the officers in charge, as the pen started moving by itself, though the camera showed a blurred version of something that was holding the pen.  
Otherwise, who would believe this testimony except for the officers who had heard Lance´s voice?  
Those who still doubted his presence, were shown the video feats now.

To the public, they called him an anonymous witness. Like they did with Keith before. It preserved their credibility.  
After that, Lance sat down in the waiting room with his mom trying to write her. Mrs. McClain did her best to make him forgive her. It did not take long of course, as Lance was already aware she had been busy with her (still dying) daughter. And still was. Still, she felt the need to apologize over and over again.

Perhaps it was better this way. That she understood that the lack of action may have consequences, too. Terrible consequences.  
Lance made sure to make her understand that he needed time for himself now. He needed time to fee safe again. In a house, she had invited his murderer in, how could he feel save there? Regardless of the fact that he was already dead. Also, being unable to talk to people took a toll on his extroverted ego, so he rather stayed with the one person he did not have to write to.

It was hard for her to get home that day. Her children were waiting, after all. And, since they finally all sat together, she heard her children´s questions for the first time in months. Because for the first time, she did not send them to bed when they did ask.

How is Veronica? What did the doctor say? How was she?  
Did uncle Lance tell her where he is? Did she find him? Because Nadia had tried to take care of Clause in his stead and failed miserably.  
Mrs. McClain had cried again, an obscure smile on her face at their naive innocence. If only she had talked to her children sooner.

\-----------------------

Lotor had been called to testify as well. As he heard of Lance´s death, he turned a heavy shade of ash.  
Mostly, because he believed he was the prime suspect.  
Because yes, that was his first and foremost concern. Would you blame him? He´d been afraid Lance had bailed on him for days. He had thought he might have been tricked and left alone by his sole companion. He had already anticipated a call from the police.

But when they showed him the corpse he had opened his mouth in shock.  
Moreover, this was the moment he finally understood what must have happened. Why Lance had not talked to him after their first meeting. Why the messages had suddenly stopped.  
Finally he had his answer. This was as far as Sendak would go. And this could have been him as well.

It was enough to make him crack and spill everything he knew. He told them everything. Every little detail about his own drug abuse. His connections to dealers all over town, his previous friends who helped him sell weed and so on. At some point it did not even have anything to do with the murder case anymore.

When they cuffed him for illegal drug possession, he seemed relieved.  
He went by Keith, guided by officers. Keith, who was still waiting for Lance to be done with his testimony had send him a look of recognition. Not surprise. Not hate, not hurt for the pain the man had induced on him all those years prior. Not disgust, but also no pity.

Pidge stood true to her word. It took her five minutes to get the evidence back. It was a shacking video, but it matched the version Lotor had on his own phone exactly.

Nyma and Rolo had disappeared only a week later. What they were up to remained a mystery. But both of them wanted to get away from the haunted city. And Nyma wanted to never see a pub again, while Rolo made sure, she´d never get to drink again.

Hunk? Hunk would stay with Pidge until he´d get back to his aunts house until after the funeral.  
Right, the funeral.

\--------------------------

“Do ghosts sleep?”, Shiro asked.  
It was Sunday again, but Shiro had been home all weekend. Keith groaned. He wanted to eat his pancakes in peace. But Shiro kept asking questions.

Yet another reason why he never talked to Shiro about his “ability.”

“They don´t.”, he replied, before Lance could write anything on the small chalkboard they bought for him.  
Lance gave him a look. “No need to pout, Lance. I know more than enough about ghosts.”  
Shiro raised an eyebrow at the chalkboard. He still was not used to the random remarks Keith made then and again at someone and no one in particular. It was hard to distinguish sometimes.

“Yeah, I´ve been meaning to ask. How do you know so much about ghosts? When I died, I didn´t even know I was dead.”, Lance responded in thought.

“Oh, you´ve met Allura, haven´t you?”, At Shiro´s questioning frown, Keith turned to him to explain.  
“Lance just asked me how I know so much about ghosts. He said, when he died, he didn´t even know he was dead.”, he turned back to Lance.

“Allura is this ghost that has been around for quite a long time. She refuses to move to the afterlife for some reason. I don´t know how she knows so much about ghosts, except for the fact that she used to be a medium. Like me. She´s kind of my mentor.  
Speaking of which, where is she? I haven´t seen her since we found your body.”

Keith looked around, as though she would just randomly appear out of nowhere. In his defense, she tended to do just that.  
Shiro, like the fool he was, followed his example.

Lance sighed. “I don´t know. I haven´t seen her either. I wanted to ask her something, but I guess that has to wait. But I´m sure, she´ll be back soon.” Lance could guess why she was gone. Or where she was.

But it was just an assumption. A ghost feeling he recently had. It was more of a sensation that wanted to pull him in.  
He had felt it when he died. But it grew stronger every day. And he knew it´s source was Allura. Like a compass he felt drawn to her. Not in a romantic way, like he initially believed when he woke up that fateful morning. It was much more of a dreading sensation. Some kind of longing, like homesickness. And it was not exactly directed at her. But more to the guidance she offered him.

For some reason, the feeling left, whenever he looked at Keith. It was weird, but Keith grounded him in a way that nothing had before. Perhaps that was the reason he stuck so close to him.

“You´re probably right.”, Keith sighed and smiled at Lance. Lance smiled back, without even thinking. Keith smiled a lot around him lately. He liked it. Perhaps, because Keith was free now. Free from the burden to hide his ghosts.

Shiro opened his mouth, but closed it again.

“So, then. “, he coughed after a while. “Keith, ehm. Can I talk to you for a second?”  
Keith and Lance exchanged a look. Which, to Shiro looked more like Keith turning his head twice. What an odd concept. You´d think he´d be used to this by now.

“Alone. Yeah. Lance, can you hold up that chalkboard of yours in the living room, so that I can check that you´re not listening?”

The chalkboard moved up in response. Frantic skribbling, until finally – why? - it read.  
Shiro sighed. “It´s kinda private. A brother to brother thing?”  
Now it was Keith who opened his mouth to say something. But he seemed to understand.  
“Lance, could you please - “  
But he did not need to finish, instead smiled at Lance´s reaction. “Thanks.”

Shiro watched, as the chalkboard moved up and left the kitchen. Leaving only him and Keith. Shiro lowered his voice, as he leaned forward to make sure, Lance was not overhearing them.

“What the hell is going on between the two of you?”, he finally asked. The question being on his mind, ever since he woke up that morning a few days ago, listening in on Keith talking to himself. Which, as he now was certain, was actually Lance.

“Ehm, I´d say, he´s dead, I talk to him.”, Keith deadpanned.

“You know exactly what I mean.”, Shiro hissed. Keith stared at him for another second. He leaned back in his chair and looked around as though the answer to this question may just randomly pop from the ceiling.

“I have absolutely no idea what you´re implying.”, Keith sighed.

“I mean, Keith. The smiles. The gesturing, the inside jokes. It´s getting more and more with each day he´s staying. He´s practically living in your room. I haven´t seen you this happy in – scratch that, I´ve never seen this happy.”

Keith leaned back forward, curiosity now displaying on his features. “I don´t understand?”, he asked, slightly fidgety as he tried to really, really think of what Shiro was telling him.

Shiro sighed. Perhaps Keith had not figured it out yet.  
“Nevermind then. Just, be careful around him alright? You said it yourself. He is staying here for a reason, which means, he´ll move on eventually. I don´t want you to be devastated when that happens. Also, he´s a ghost.”

Keith blinked, but his entire expression turned slightly embarrassed.  
Sad even, catching Shiro off guard.  
“Of course I know. And I´m used to it. It´s not like I forgot. Ghosts tend to disappear all the time.”  
Everything he said was true. But his heart screamed of betrayal.  
That Shiro noticed it was not even a mystery.  
Shiro could read his brother like nobody else could. Keith was smiling at him a bit, but Shiro saw it upside down. He could look right through him.

Keith´s eyes showed so much more about his feelings than any of his gestures. His real smiles were small, smaller even than that grin he just threw at Shiro.  
But when he really smiled, his eyes would soften, glow even. It was a huge difference to the sadness they just displayed.

However, Shiro had a feeling that this was a feeling Keith could not quite place himself yet.

“Don´t look at me like that!”, Keith interrupted Shiro´s worry.  
“I´m not dying because of this. What are you so worried about? I´ll be fine. You should consider worrying about Lance instead. The guy can barely talk to his own mother without feeling guilty or in pain. Not to mention he remembers ever second of his murder. “ With that, the conversation ended.

The thing was, Keith knew exactly what Shiro was hinting at.  
But he didn´t want him to know that he knew. Keith had the feeling that his emotions were completely out of place right now.  
It´s been merely a week since he started talking to the ghost of Lance. And still, he had this feeling that in real life, they would never have gotten this close. In a way, he was glad that Lance died. But he also felt horrible of that mere thought.

Whenever Lance went out of his way to talk to someone, like his mother for example, he always seemed to wear a mask.  
Lance had long forgiven her for the lack of focus she had on her children, but Keith saw the hurt every time he used the chalkboard.  
When Lance talked to Shiro, he wrote jokes on the board, but Keith could tell he was ashamed of himself.

When Keith confronted Lance about it, he told him that he had always showed Shiro the cold shoulder when he visited his sister.  
And he knew that Shiro could have helped him sort out some of his own messes. Like his sexuality for one. Something he was yet not comfortable to talk about. Maybe he would be, eventually.

But Lance also regretted not talking to Shiro the night he died. Perhaps he would have helped him. It was too late to know now. And it caused even more pressure on Shiro. Shiro never said it, but they both knew he was blaming himself for not finding Lance that night.  
Perhaps he believed, he could have prevented the murder. But that was the one thing every single one of them had in common.

In short, the most honest Keith ever saw Lance acting was, when it was only the two of them. Though, he was afraid that perhaps this as well, was just another mask of Lance´s.  
Keith was well aware of the fact that Lance was an awesome actor.

Lance, around Keith was different. There was nothing they owed each other. No pressure, no judgment about a life Keith had been barely involved in. Keith was basically the only person he could talk to without being ashamed.  
And Keith felt that vise versa it was not much of a difference.

Lance was, in a way, exactly the kind of friend Keith wanted in his life.  
He respected his boundaries, but also managed to push him past them. He made Keith want to be a better person. To take care of more than just Shiro. He made him realize that understanding the pain a ghost went through in their life´s as well as in their death´s, made a huge difference. It made him understand why ghosts did not always want to move on. And that it was important to respect that wish.  
It helped him get along with them better. At least that was the case with Lance himself. He had yet to encounter another ghost.

And briefly Keith wondered, if they could ever solve a case together.

Keith always hated helping ghosts with their past life difficulties. Furthermore, he hated digging into their life´s, asking for personal information.  
Lance, though. Lance was the type of person who would listen unconditionally. Who would help them without thinking of his own benefits.

That was something even Allura lacked. And Allura had made helping ghosts her personal mission.  
It made Keith wonder, if deep down, he could be as much of a good person as Lance was.

Lance was crazy in some regards. His humor was stupid. He´d laugh about literally anything that Keith could not even make sense of.  
Perhaps he only laughed because Keith did not understand but that was beside the point.  
It was charming and nice and Keith liked it. And the more he heard it, the more he craved for it in this time they spend together.

Keith longed for this laugh. And he longed for the ability to make other people just as happy.  
Maybe he was jealous. Or envious.  
Still, at the and of the day, Keith was sad. Shiro said it before, but it dawned on him, every time they were quietly enjoying each others presence.

Lance would leave. It was only a matter of time. With each day that passed, Keith felt lonelier. Which was awkward, since Lance was still there. Making jokes, giving him ideas for his sketchbook, letting him draw him in difficult poses, etc.  
Eventually, he helped him be a bit more social, as he practically forced Keith to hang out with Pidge and Hunk. If only to translate his silent monologues.

Keith liked his company. After some time, he started enjoying their little group nights, too. Only the four of them, like a bunch of old friends. And he was glad Lance stayed at his home, when he could have just stayed with his life friends or family.

They would talk until late night, without anyone noticing. About everything and nothing. Feelings and Jokes. Keith would lay in his bed, while Lance basically floated in the air next to him. They would point at the stars that shone into Keith´s room through the window. Lance knew a lot about constellations and told him everything about them. And he told him stories. It did not even matter whether or not they were talking at this point. It was still nice.

The more time they spend together, the more used Keith got to his constant presence. And the feeling of waterfalls and rushing waves next to him. Until Lance calmed down and quietly, like a lake became the source of Keith´s inner peace.

To Keith, the most surreal day that ever approached them was the upcoming Wednesday. The day of the funeral.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end -

The funeral was surreal, because of all the sadness the McClain family showed.

Keith, Shiro, Pidge and Hunk were invited for breakfast at the McClain´s house.  
Keith never knew where Lance lived before.  
Now he did. It was relatively close to the hospital in town. A place, Lance never went to since he died. At least to Keith´s knowledge.  
Which, honestly, was a surprise, considering his sisters condition.

“Perhaps, I should have stayed at your house.”, Lance awkwardly chuckled, as they approached the front door. His mother had cleaned the entire house and yard for the dark occasion. The light shone brightly at the house but Keith had a feeling it was usually never this orderly.  
It lacked the sense of comfort and the mentality of organized mess that reminded him of Lance.

“I wasn´t invited and the things I´m wearing-”  
“Dude, this is your own funeral. Your name might not be on the invitation, but it´s literally on the grave stone. Your invitation has to be the most fancy one.”, Keith tried to calm him with a smile.

“What is it? What is he saying?”, Hunk said, but Keith only waved it off. It meant, ,I can handle it.´ Hunk nodded.

Lance understood that it was hard for Keith to repeat everything he said, sometimes.  
That was why they bought the chalkboard in the first place. Now however, he did not bring it. Why? Because Lance insisted, his family, except for his mom, should not know about his presence.

People would be freaking out, hearing about the ghost of one of their closest relatives.  
They´d be convinced Mrs. McClain was nuts. And Lance was not exactly in the mood to respond to all the people in his family.

They should be allowed to grief in silence, Keith had approved.  
Still.

“And those clothes are the ones you died in. You can´t do anything about that. Not that it matters.”, Keith added. Lance blinked. Then, a grin spread on his translucent face, a sparkle in his eyes at the opportunity.  
“Are you, perhaps implying, that I always look good, no matter what I´m wearing?”  
Keith answered with confusion. “Yes.”  
Surely he could have meant it did not matter, because nobody could see him anyway. But his answer was full of certainty. As well as brutal honestly. It made Lance´s voice stuck in his throat.

Hunk smiled at Keith from the side, not even knowing what Lance had said, but Keith did not notice. Lance coughed, as though he wanted to disrupt the moment from this – interaction. Which was an unnecessary task. Their conversations were bound to be private. Well – 50% private. They could still hear Keith.  
51%, if you counted Lance´s rare outbursts.  
A moment later, Shiro came to his rescue, as he rang the bell at the front lawn.

It took several tries, until Mrs. McClain opened the door to let them in. She looked exhausted. Tired and sad, but also better than the day they found his body.  
“Welcome, hey there Shiro. Hunk, Pidge come in. Hello Keith.”, she stopped, as her smile disappeared at his sight. Keith fidgeted in his position. Was his black shirt inappropriate for this occasion? Should he have gone with a smoking like Shiro and Hunk?

“Keith? Ehm – is he here?”, she asked as kindly as she could She did not look at him. Not that he blamed her.

The tension in Keith´s shoulder relaxed as he got the hint.  
“Well – yes.”, he put a hand on Lance´s shoulder who froze at the motion.

It was a weird feeling, to be honest. For Keith it felt like grabbing for a mix of dense, materialized air. Water, perhaps. But not quite.  
While Lance felt the touch as some kind of energy. A warmth that just happened to be there on his shoulder. He noticed that every person he touched felt different.

When Hunk did it, it felt like the warmth and softness of a stuff toy that someone left too close to the heater. It was comforting and nice and he enjoyed it a lot.  
When he touched Pidge, she felt like a radiant bundle of energy. A warmth that almost burned. Kind of like electricity. Perhaps it was bound to her personality. She was obsessed with technology and the kind of person who would jump at you, when you said something wrong.

Shiro? When Shiro touched him, it felt the most human Lance could remember. It felt heavy, with a light pressure to it. But also as though a father was approving of you.

With Keith it was a bit different.  
Keith felt like an open fire. Even when you stood right next to him, you could feel his presence. It felt dangerous to be close to him. At the same time you wanted to, because of the warmth he provided. Whenever Lance touched him, he was afraid to get burned.  
Instead, the feeling barely changed. Touching him felt like cooling him down. Like holding cold hands in front of a flame. Like caressing a single candle. Bright and warm and sparkling.  
It startled him every time.

Mrs. McClain looked at the hand that was connected to thick air.  
“I see.”, she sighed in both relief and anticipation. Maybe she had expected that everything was just a dream. That maybe, her son died and the realization of it made her believe in ghosts.  
She was religious, but she always believed ghosts went either straight to heaven or hell. It made her tense, wondering why her son didn´t. And she felt selfish for wanting him to stay and talk to her.  
Though Lance barely visited. She knew he was not ready for that. Not yet.  
She could not even blame him.

“Is – is he okay?”, she asked and Lance looked down in shame. Keith´s grip tightened.  
“Not okay, no.”, Keith said, turning slightly to Lance. “But he´s better now.”  
This seemed enough for Lance´s mother. “Can, Can I hug him?”, she asked. And Lance was glad that she asked for permission. Did she have to ask Keith though?  
“You can ask him.”, Keith reminded her as calm as possible. Lance looked up in surprise. Keith was getting pretty good at reading him, he had to admit as much.

Mrs. McClain gave him a look. But turned towards the invisible nothing anyway. “Lance? Can I, please, give you a hug? I miss you.” Her eyes were pleading, despite the fact they were fixated on the hand that was still on his shoulder.

“I- “, Lance started, until he was reminded that she could not hear him. And believe him when he told you that he tried. Perhaps the level of emotional he needed to talk, was too high to constantly maintain.

So he moved forward, shaking off Keith´s hand in the process and hugged his mother.  
She felt like a cup of hot chocolate in winter. And he cried a bit as he finally relaxed into her embrace. She, as well, cried a bit.  
Shiro, Pidge and Hunk were looking back at them, sad smiles on their faces. They knew what she must feel at the moment.

Keith smiled at them. Wishing, for a split second, his own mother was here somewhere.  
After all those years, he could not help but miss her.  
He put his hands in his pockets after a while. They didn´t seem like they wanted to let go off each other soon, so he shushed his friends and his brother inside.

\------------------

A solid half and hour later, finally everyone was seated in the living room of the McClain´s house.  
Lance´s family, Keith realized, was huge. And with huge, I mean, huge.  
Keith himself did not have a single cousin, since neither of his parents had siblings.

But Lance? Apparently his father had like four, each of them around three children of their own?  
His mother was blessed/cursed with five siblings, each of them with two children.  
That made around twenty two cousins. Twenty. Two.

And they went from all ages, here and there a boy- or girlfriend who tagged along.  
Lance´s mother had put an extra chair out of nowhere for Lance and put it on the short end of the endless table.  
There was a name tag on it. The cousins and uncles send her looks of empathy.  
However, Since the ghost was actually present, Keith nudged him to go and sit down there.

His many cousins, all whom Lance must have had a friendly relationship with, stared at the empty seat in silence. Some of them were crying. Others were grabbing the food that was placed in huge varieties on the table.

Keith, Shiro, Pidge and Hunk sat down, far away from Lance. It would have been weird for Lance´s mother to let them sit so close to her dead son, since nobody knew of his presence.  
Still, it bothered Keith. And by the looks of his dead friend, he knew it bothered Lance too.

They began eating. Everyone except Lance of course. It´s weird how silent a room of so many people can be, when someone they loved had died. And there was nothing the ghost could do to calm them. He seemed uncomfortable. Like an intruder in his own family. Attending a business that nobody should have attended to. If you asked him that is.

After a while, however, Lance´s siblings started talking. They were the most calm about it for some reason. According to what Lance had told Keith some days prior, their names were Nadia and Clause. They were twins and inseparable. Mrs. McClain was busy with the youngest of them. She put him in a stall, next to the door, so that the small child would not hurt himself.

By looks of it, the twins were a lot like Lance. Jittery bundles of joy. Despite the situation. They were making jokes. Telling each other stories of Lance and the people who started listening, such as Keith for instance, could not help but laugh.

“Yeah, he actually made me believe, not only Santa was real, but that he was secretly the monster in my closet!”, Clause said, ridiculousness sparkling in his eyes.  
“Obviously I did not believe him. I may have been five, but I´m not that stupid.”  
Nadia was already laughing way too much at this, she already knew the story.

“But he insisted he was right. And I think, he believed it himself. Because one night, I woke up to his screaming. He shouted something like “No Santa! Go back to that closet. It´s not Christmas yet.  
And then, I heard him screaming even louder.  
I thought he was dreaming or something and tried waking him up. But when I opened the door. I tell you I couldn´t stop myself from laughing.  
There was a giant Santa in the room. It was such a stupid costume really. Santa held one of his favorite toys, threatening to cut it´s throat open, if Lance didn´t behave.”  
The giggling grew louder.

“Santa was in your room?”, a cousin of Lance´s asked bewildered.

“Well, yes, obviously it was a costume. But men, Lance really shouldn´t have eaten Veronica´s cookies. She was so -”, he stopped.  
The laughing ebbed away. And the cousin began regretting the question immediately.  
Even Lance´s initial smile cooled down. And Keith began briefly wondering, when this started.  
When did this family break apart.  
Lance´s mother did not say anything, but Keith could tell she wanted to leave the room.

And in this moment, a thought hit him. Had it been Lance, who kept this family together?  
Sure they all gathered here to grief. But that was something you did for your grandmother, not your cousin. At least, unless you were connected somehow. Not with a family this huge, that is.

After a while, another cousin of Lance´s picked up where the siblings left off.  
He started talking about a snowman they build with Lance once. One that looked exactly like mickey mouse, according to him.  
And the stories went on. With every story, Keith felt himself cowering more in his seat.  
His theory was proven correct. Everyone in here had at least one story to share about Lance and the great or rather stupid things he did in his life.

After a while, it was Hunk´s time to share some stories. And there were a lot of them. Hunk was Lance´s best friend. So of course he had a lot to say.  
“Lance helped me, when nobody else was there for me. Already in third grade, he helped me, when my parents were about to divorce. My Moms are fine now. But I tell you, it was harsh-”, he was interrupted by Nadia.  
“You have two moms?”, she asked, multiple pairs of eyes fixated on him. Keith opened his mouth to say something. He had not known that. And slight panic settled in his stomach, filling him with hot nausea.

“I do. And I love them dearly.”, Hunk nodded at her with a smile.  
And then- something magical happened. The tension in the room lifted instantly, when Nadia started beaming. Gentle smiles were shared between people Keith had never met before. About a matter he had been concerned of ever since he met Lotor for the first time. Long ago, on the playground they went to in middle school.

But this? This felt so heartwarming. So nice. So entirely different than living in this town usually provided. As though they were just accepting Keith himself. And Lance too, whom he saw spilling tears in his seat. Grateful for his best friend. Maybe also, because he understood what Keith felt. Perhaps that was why he looked at him with such glee in his eyes.

It took them a while to calm down, but Keith could not help but smile at Lance. The ghost smiled back, despite the odd looks he received from Lance´s uncle who sat next to Keith and noticed that his gaze was fixed at Lance´s seat.

Now it was Pidge´s turn to tell a story. Someone more or less forced her to say something.  
“I- I didn´t exactly know Lance that well.”, she admitted. “However, he visited me here and there in the IT-club in our school.  
I can´t exactly say, we´ve been friends. But I´m certain, if he had stopped me from falling asleep in my lab like, one more time, we would have been. I tagged along with Hunk here most of the time. So I heard Lance talk about his crushes and stuff, all the time.

And we were lab partners in chemistry for a while. He wanted to be my friend. I always knew that. Perhaps I was a bit intimidated by the fact that he was one of the popular kids. But really, he was just as much of a nerd as I am.”, she send them an apologetic smile. But they nodded at her in understanding.

Nobody asked Shiro to say anything. But he did so anyway.  
“I – I think Lance never liked me much.”, he began, as silence settled in the room yet again.  
And the moods turned tense again. They must know who Shiro was. They must feel for him the same Lance did before.  
“But, thanks to my brother here, I – I had a chance to talk with him about stuff.”, Shiro did not say when they talked, but Keith could tell he meant after Lance died.  
But he could not recall the talk the both might have had. Did they talk to each other a different time? Well – Shiro barely slept and Lance did not at all. So it made sense that they might have shared some bonding time together, without him noticing.

“I blamed myself for what happened three years ago. For the longest time. And I thought he did, too.  
He told me I was wrong.”, Shiro made a pause. Pregnant with his own guilt.  
“He told me it was not my fault. If anything, he blames himself.  
Maybe I should not tell you this, since this is his memorial. But I feel like he wants me to tell you anyway.”  
He raised a brow at Keith in question. Lance raised his thumbs at him, wearing a tired smile. Keith nodded at Shiro to continue. Despite his own confusion.

“I did not know then, that Lance, as a child, had stolen his fathers car. Only days before the accident.”, Shiro started.  
Keith startled at the confession. He was not the only one.

“He told me that he had known something was wrong with the car. He had his own little accident with it. The brakes were loose after that, he said.  
He blames himself, because he did not have the guts to tell his father that something happened.  
And when his father and Lance´s sister got in the car, days later, they did not get far. They were driving fast. I don´t know whether or not they had noticed the damaged brakes then, but when I drove past that stop sign, they could not have stopped the car.

I´m not telling you this, to shine a dark light on Lance. But to tell you, that Lance did care a lot about what happened. That he barely blamed me. He even comforted me, when I apologized to him. It means a lot to me. I don´t think it´s his fault.  
And I cannot blame myself enough for the fact that I hit him with my car, too. That I could have saved him. I know now what I took from the world.  
He had a great sense for equality and he genuinely loved all of his friends and his family. The fact that all of you are here is proof to that. I´m so sorry.”  
Shiro had tears in his eyes at the confession. Keith´s gaped in surprise. He had not – known that.  
Lance looked down in shame, avoiding Keith´s gaze as silence settled over the family.

People looked at each other in a similar matter as they tried to comfort Shiro. Made sure, he was ok. Perhaps it was a McClain thing. Maybe all of them were just like Lance. Kind and full of support.

Then, however, people looked at Keith. And for a second Keith wondered why. Until he understood that it was now his turn to say something. Which proofed to be difficult.

“I- ehm.”, he started, intelligently, feeling all the eyes, especially Lance´s on him.  
“With me it´s similar to Pidge, I guess. I didn´t know him for long.”, he paused, thinking of what to say. “Or at all, that is.”, he admitted, as he recalled that before he died, they never talked much. Irritated glances in his direction made him falter as he continued anyway.

“We went to the same school, ever since I moved here. We never talked. Or rather, barely. Actually, that is not entirely true.

Lance was the popular kid. He talked to everyone. And everyone knew him or so it seemed.  
I was the odd one. There were rumors about me and I admit, they were mostly true but that is beside the point.

I´m pretty sure he only ever talked to me at my worst moments. Like the day I failed a math test so miserably that our teacher took me to the side and scolded me.  
Lance approached me later that day, since we were in the same math class.  
He made fun of my score, since his was better. Only by one or two grades, but still. We fought then. Like, verbally. He insulted my hair, like he used to all the time and said something like, ,for someone whose usually the best in class, you really screwed up today. What happened to the guy who always beats me at everything. This is disappointing.´Well, it´s not his exact words, but it´s close. I don´t even know what he was talking about back then. That was one of the first tests we ever took. It´s not like we had much to compare.

The thing is, I don´t think that was the point. He was not even mean about it. Which, as I assure you is rare in a school like ours.

But I remember that it wormed me. I studied like a maniac after that, only to proof him wrong. That I actually was better at everything than he was.  
Our next test, I aced it. Apparently Lance studied hard too, but he scored below me. When he showed me and I showed him mine, I thought he´d be mad. Or angry. But I remember how he only shot finger guns at me and told me that he knew I could do it.

Ever since then, we had a silent competition in class who´d have the best grades. And I guess I got used to watching him from then on.  
We did not know each other. All we talked to about was my hair cut and our grades. For some reason he is obsessed with it. But he made me pull myself together. My grades got better because of him. And whenever he noticed my mood drop, he´d always distract me with a challenge. I remember he threw a candy bar at me once. Back then I thought he wanted to annoy me. Later I realized that was not the case.

The Friday before his death, I had the chance to make it up to him. He always cheered me up. And the one day I could have been as nice as he was, I did not even talk to him.  
Shiro is wrong when he says it´s his fault that he died. I could have prevented it then and there. I´m certain I could have. And I wish I had tried to become his friend, instead of his rival. He was a friend to me. I wasn´t to him. And it´s the one thing I regret the most.”

Keith stopped. For a minute, he had stopped seeing the people in this room. Had only seen Lance and the small memories they shared. Lance stared at him in confusion, not knowing how small gestures could have such a great impact on others. Things like these, behavior like these were normal to him.  
He did not know they weren´t to everyone.

It was odd. Like in the past, Keith and Lance were sitting distanced from each other.  
But it felt like Keith was the only one who could truly, really see Lance. And Lance practically stared at him. Surrounded by the people he loved the most in the world, who couldn´t.  
And still he was in his own world with Keith. Looking only at him. How had he not seen this before?

The silence continued on and finally Keith realized everyone was staring at him.  
Nobody picked up another story, like they had before.

Shiro put an arm around him in an embrace. “It´s alright Keith.”, he said. And only now Keith noticed the tears in his own eyes. Why was he crying? He could still see Lance.  
He could still talk to him. Why was he crying about – loosing him? Loosing what they had and what they have now?

Knowing looks, understanding smiles. Keith was irritated by the intensity of it all.  
Even Pidge looked at him in empathy. For the first time in forever, Keith felt like he had actually shocked her. She was used to his antics, but this was new even to her.

Everyone was thinking the same thing. Keith and Lance had something you would call a beginning. A beginning of a beginning. Of something greater than they realized themselves. It could have been more. They could have really grown on each other. But nobody said it. Because it was over before it started.  
Like a flower who was denied the chance to blossom.

\-------------------------

When it was finally time for the funeral, the family was set in motion. A crowd of people clothed in all the different colors of black made their way to the grave yard.

The church close to their house. No wonder, since it was also pretty close to the hospital.  
People often went to church, when someone they cared about was in surgery or about to die.  
They often only turned to believe, when everything else had left them.

The march, despite the shortness of the way, was still long. Pidge, Hunk, Shiro and Keith were the last in line. Next to them walked the ghost of Lance. He seemed a bit embarrassed by all the attention his death got.

“You know, the next time I die, make sure I get a party. This is just sad.”, he whispered and Keith almost laughed at the ridiculousness of his sentence.  
“Let´s hope, that won´t happen again.”, Keith whispered back, hoping nobody saw or heard him, except for his new found friends.

“Man, this is so sad. I bet Lance is mad, we´re not throwing some kind of ball for him.”, Hunk said soon after, receiving an odd look from Keith.  
“What?” “Nothing. It´s just, that´s exactly what Lance just said.”, he explained and Hunk grinned in response.

“Well, yeah. He always hated these depressing traditions.”, he said in thought, extending his arms in a motion that included every mourning McClain in front of them.  
Pidge repositioned her glassed as she cracked a grin. “Yeah, he seems the type.”

Finally, they made it to the hall were Lance´s corpse was presented. In a small shack in the middle of the grave yard.

And they thought Keith was emo.

In the center of the hall stood an open coffin. And for the first time since they found the corpse, they were struck with it again.  
Being able to communicate with the dead, Keith had completely forgotten there was a completely still version of Lance prepared to be presented to his relatives and friends.

The entire room, if not silent already, was suddenly tense. They did their best to make Lance look stunning in death. In a way, Keith had to admit, they managed to do so.  
He wore a pullover Keith had seen him wear a lot in school. It might have been a band shirt, but they could not make out which one it was. With the blue roses covering his chest. Petals bedding his sleeping form.

Keith gulped at the sight, suddenly being reminded how much more serious this was to all of them. He stood there, watching, while everyone else was searching for a place to sit.

Of course they had to hold an entire ceremony in his name. It was kind of exactly Lance´s style. Banners with goodbye wished and thousands of flowers decorated the floor in front of the open coffin.  
The priest would soon start his monologue, but Keith was suddenly distracted. Pidge grabbed him by his arm, motioning with her head to make him sit down next to her.

But Keith did not react. By what or whom you ask? Well, three people were responsible for that. For one, it was Lance himself, who stood next to him, eyes wide as he grabbed Keith by the wrist to make sure he was not imagining things.  
He looked at his coffin, or so it seemed, but then Keith saw who was standing right there. As if nothing could ever disturb the peace in their minds, two figurines gently smiled at Lance´s lifeless form. One of them a bit more disturbed than the other.

As soon as she noticed his stares, Allura walked towards him. She was not heading for Keith, as he now realized, but for Lance. Maybe he should have expected that.  
“Lance. It is time.”, she said, reaching for his hand, her glowing face a mockery to the darkness that settled inside of Keith at the words. Because he understood what this was implying.  
“No, no no no. Not now.”, he said, way too loud for anyone to consider normal.  
Pidge glared at him.

“Keith, sit down.”, she said. “I can´t.” Hectic as he was, he turned around, frantically searching for a familiar face.  
Were is Mrs. McClain!”, he demanded to know. Loud and clear over the rows and rows of people.  
“Keith, calm down.”, Shiro said, also trying to hold him down. But Keith only stared at the person standing right next to the coffin.

“Keith, it´ll be fine, I promise.”, Allura said, a bit irritated by his concern.  
Lance smiled at him reassuringly. But he could not fool Keith. “I´ll be fine.”, Lance insisted at Keith´s antics.

“What´s wrong, Keith?”, Mrs. McClain spoke up. Concern in her eyes. “Is something wrong with Lance?”, she asked, causing the audience to startle and give her incredulous looks. How dare she ask something like that.

But Keith´s shivering lips made her tilt her head in confusion. He shook his head and took a deep breath.  
“I think Veronica just died.”

 

\-----------

 

True to his words, Mrs. McClain´s phone rang only minutes of silence later, eyes widening in horror, as she stared at the name that was tagged on it.  
“It´s – it´s the hospital.”, she whispered, eyes stern. Murmuring and questioning glares living up the room in shock.

Keith still stared ahead, at Lance who gave him an apologetic smile as he walked towards his sister.  
“Hey, Veronica.”, he said and the girl in question opened her mouth in shock.  
“What – why are you? You´re dead! This is your -”  
“Funeral? I know.”, he said.  
Veronica stumbled back. “No.”, she said, an incredulous expression proof of the shivering that went down her spine.

“Yeah. It´s a long story:”  
“No, I mean. Why are you still here then?” So she knew they were both dead. A good sign, Lance decided.

“I was waiting for you.”, he said kindly.  
“Come on, I´ll tell you everything when we´re both on the other side.”  
Keith froze at those words, unable to say anything in his panic. Lance tightened his grip on Keith´s wrist in an attempt to calm him. But he only prevented him from interfering.

Finally he let go of him, as Lance grabbed Veronica´s hand and sighed in defeat. Allura nodded at them. “You´re not going to say goodbye?”, she asked, glancing at Keith.

Lance lowered his head, as he turned to him. There was a silent question in his eyes, if Keith was ok with this. But he knew, Keith was not.  
“I´m sorry, Keith. This is what I was staying for.”

“You´re leaving?”, Keith responded, a heaviness in his voice that Lance could not quite place. He sounded hurt. Quite the opposite of who he used to be to Lance, long before Lance had died.  
Stoic and angry and ignorant of everyone and everything. Now, he was standing here, like his entire world was collapsing.

Keith felt the stares more than he saw them, especially the priest seemed concerned.  
But Lance´s mother was alarmed, so were Keith´s friends. Because they knew this was deeper than it looked at first glance.

“I am.”, Lance said, but there was something in his eyes that told Keith to just – wait.  
“For now. We´ll see each other again, I promise.”, he said.  
“You can´t just – drop that on me and not explain anything!”, Keith finally managed to respond.

“See you.”, Lance waved at him, winking. Actually winking. “Trust me.”, he then added, with a more serious expression.  
And Keith? He actually let the bastard go.  
A light erupted from nowhere as Lance finally looked at Veronica and shoved her forwards, passed Allura´s questioning glance at the two of the. “What about mom?”, she Veronica asked.

“She´ll be fine. I promise.”, Lance lied and dragged her with him.

Allura exchanged an apologetic smile with Keith.  
“I´m sorry, Keith.”, she murmured. And a second later Keith felt like someone had ripped out a piece of his heart. Just, when he had gotten used to someone this close in his life. Someone who had entered his life without the instant wish to leave him behind.

Soon, they were gone. All that remained were the staring. And Keith could not take it, as he left the room. Just like Mrs. McClain who was now in a heavy exchange with the doctor that supervised Veronica´s condition.  
He knew they were just telling her what she already knew, but dreaded to hear again.

But Keith ran. He didn´t even know where he ran. All he knew was that he wanted to escape those voices that were running after him. And it took a while, but they disappeared eventually.  
He needed to be alone. It did not matter where he´d go. He just needed to get away.

\-------------------------

When Lance opened his eyes, everything was white. Well, not exactly the white you usually saw in movies, when someone went to the afterlife.  
This was something else.  
It was a field. Full of white crops, while the sky illuminated in a bluish light. But there was no source of light. The place was light itself. It was a similar glow to the one´s outlining their deadly forms.

“This is the afterlife?”, Lance asked, irritated at the sheer nothingness of this place.  
Allura nodded.  
“Yes and no. It is the space between. A few meters further north and we´ll be at the river. You two have to cross the river to find the white city.  
I call it Altea, other people call it home. It´s where your father and your ancestors are.  
The fact that we are here, so far from the river however, means that one of you has something left to say. So, spill it.”, she said a bit annoyed. Maybe this happened more often than she liked? Who could blame her. She hated it when people could not just move on with their life´s.

Lance blinked mischievously.  
“That would be me.”, he admitted. Allura raised an eyebrow. “But – you – the reason you were still on earth was her. Is there anything else you have to take care of? I am not going to bring you back, Lance.”

“That is not what I want. Not exactly”, he said.

“Well, say it, Lance. I really want to see dad.”, Veronica said, eyes sparkling. There was no regret in her voice, as though she already forgot why they were here in the first place. Perhaps she did. Who knows what that white light thingy does to your mind. It made Lance wonder if he was about to forget some things too.

“I want to know how you got your job. And why you´re not coming with us.”, he said.  
Allura sighed.  
“Of course you would ask that.”, she sighed. “Why do you want to know?!”, she asked.  
Lance took a deep breath.  
“Because you want Keith to take on your job. And – I don´t want that.”  
Allura opened her mouth again, now curious.

“When I go to the other side. I want to see him again. All of my friends. And I don´t want him to take a job that he´s definitely going to hate. Only to spend eternity trying to convince people to get here. While I – we wait forever.”

Allura sighed again. “I never asked for this job either, Lance. I want to get out of this too. Keith is my only option.”  
“Is he though? Can´t a normal ghost take on your job?”  
Allura blinked again.

“Of course they could. But nobody wants to. And I cannot force them. Believe me, I´ve tried.  
I have to make a deal with someone, while they are alive. If they agree, it´s like a written contract they cannot betray. And since only mediums can talk to me, I have no other option.  
I am the ferryman. I am the guard that gets you to the other side.

My father was the ferryman before me. He gave me the crown that made me who I am now.”, she said, pointing to the diadem on her head.

And Lance recalled the story of the ferryman in his mind. It was the kind of story you would hear in history class about Greek mythology.  
The ferryman was, much like the reaper, a symbol of death. It was supposed to be a man on a boat with a paddle whose job it was to take people to the other side of the river. Styx was the name of that river and Lance was ninety percent sure that was the river Allura was leading them to.

According to the legend, the ferryman can only ever give up his position, if he handed over the paddle. However, Allura did not have a paddle. Then again, it was only a legend.

Lance smiled. “I´ll do it.”, he said and both Allura and Veronica froze at the suggestion.

“What- what do you mean?”, Allura asked, now totally confused.  
“You don´t even know what you´re saying. This is a responsibility. It´s a heavy weight on your shoulder. The crown notifies you every time someone kicks the bucket. You´d have a lot of work to do. Time is going to move differently for you.  
The amount of time you spend with your loved once will be down to-”

“I want to.” Lance nodded, certainty in his eyes. So, the diadem was the paddle.

“You – do.”, she did not ask. She was trying to read his intentions. “Why?”  
“I want to help people. And as you said, I can stay with my family. With my friends. I´ll come here soon enough, when I find a successor like you were trying to.  
It´ll be fine. I´ll be fine.”, he assured her.

“No, Lance. You don´t understand. You´re not just sending to Altea. But also to the other side. The bad side. What most people call hell.  
You-”

“I´ll figure it out. Just like you did.”  
Allura opened her mouth again. “Come on, Allura. I know you want to see your dad. You´ve been waiting long enough.  
Plus, I am already pretty good at talking to living people. I can do this job. I know I can.”

Allura closed her mouth and sighed.  
“You probably are a better pick than Keith is, to be honest.  
Still, let me show you how the crown works first, before you agree to take over this hell of a job.  
I was trained by the ferryman before my father for my whole life.  
Though, I have to admit, the crown explains it pretty well to you. Just, don´t be discouraged by all the souls you´ll have to take. It´s – a lot.”

Lance grinned, as serious as a grin could be.  
“First of all, this crown I cannot take of. You won´t be able to take it off either. It will always be in your head.  
The only way to take it off, is if someone takes it from you, or you have a contract with someone, then you may take it off yourself to hand it over. If they refuse after they already gave their word, the crown will still appear on their heads.

You need consent, but a nod or a promise is enough and counts as a signature. This is a contract that is verbally signed.  
However, the person you give it to, needs to have at least basic knowledge about the job of the ferryman.  
Do you follow?”

Lance nodded. Allura then started explaining what his job would be exactly.  
How he would have to stalk people, get into their private affairs, break into their houses if necessary. He must interfere with the real world as little as possible, though. Moreover, he shall not change someone´s fate. A fate that is written inside the jewel of the diadem and will be known to him.

He would have the knowledge of all people´s life spans. He would know when his friends will die too. But he would not be allowed to prevent it.  
He was allowed to talk to people, but he better refrain from changing their decisions or help them achieve goals that may change their future.  
She continued on, explaining rule by rule. With every word Veronica seemed to worry more and more. While Lance´s determination only grew.

“Do you understand, Lance?”, Allura finally concluded. “You will be trapped in the world of the living forever.”

“Don´t worry, princess. I can do it. I promise.”

And then, Allura took of her diadem and handed it to Lance. He took it with a smile. “Now, take us to the other side?”, Allura asked, trying not to look too relieved.  
“Yes, thank you princess.”  
“No, thank you, Lance.”

\------------------------

 

Two weeks later

 

Keith was alone. Why he decided to come here again? He did not know. Perhaps a part of him wanted Lance back.

Perhaps a part of him hoped that Lance would return eventually, like he had promised. But Lance never did.  
Another part of him wanted to talk to Allura, too. He wanted to shout at her for taking Lance away, but also to comfort her.

Because while Lance was gone, something else had come to light. Right now, Keith was unable to not think of it.

Two days prior, Coran had asked him to come to his office. Keith remembered entering the room, hesitant at first. Wondering why he was here in the first place.  
Why he had not run away again, like he had when Shiro wanted to confront him. But Coran was speaking of new found evidence and that he wanted to ask him something important.

“Hello, Keith.”, Coran had greeted him. Keith did not respond, he just nodded. Waiting for a monologue and a speech, though he did not know what that would be about.

“I wanted to thank you.” Keith had looked up in surprise, confusion on his expression. He had never seen Coran this tired, this overworked and yet so relieved.

“The CD we found contained more evidence than we anticipated.”, he had started, a small smile on his face.

“We found evidence that connects Mr. Sendak to crimes that we thought were long solved or already considered as cold cases.  
I wanted to ask you, if this ,Allura´, you´re talking to sometimes is here right now. And if she is not, could you call her?” He had seemed desperate, as though he had wanted to ask Keith this for a long time now.

Keith hook his head in confusion. “I – I have not talked to her since the funeral. She has disappeared again.”, he answered. “But I know she is your niece. Pidge figured that out for me.”, he confessed.  
Coran opened his mouth, but it turned in to a smile.

“I see. So you know. You see, my best friend was murdered, soon after his daughter was born. Well, up until now we thought it was an accident. But Allura, she is not my real niece, I have to admit, she was like you. And she could still see him.  
Sometimes she would not know her ghosts were not real though. And her father, her father made sure she would not know.  
He was a ghost, but he still raised her.”, Coran had explained, stirring Keith to a halt at the familiarity of the story.

“When she was ten years old, she had figured out her abilities. And many people came to her for questions about the dead. She could not always answer, so many people called her a fraud. But others, whomever she was to seek out by herself, believed her. And so did I, because she knew things about Alfor, she should not have known.

And when her popularity grew, more and more people searched for her.  
One of them was Mr. Sendak.”, Coran had stopped, causing Keith to shiver at the implication.

“I don´t know what they talked about. Allura was very secretive, but I remember him storming out of the room, shouting angrily at her, who looked like she was being strangled by him.  
We tried to sew him, but somehow, he bribed his way out of it.

About a week later, someone else in town died. And me and my officers were searching for evidence. One day later, we found Allura had investigated the scene on her own.  
We – we found her corpse in front of a crashed car that someone had abandoned somewhere.”, Coran stopped at the memory. Until he found the breath to continue.

“We never found any evidence on Sendak. And he left town soon after. With nobody left in my home town, I followed him here. And I tried, believe me, I tried to hard to find him.  
I went to the Galra pub more often then necessary, but I could use nothing against him. I could not get a search warrant, because he never lived by himself.

When I met you, I hoped you could help me. That the ghosts you saw would speak the truth.  
But I could not risk asking you about Allura. And I thought, maybe it was best if you came to me yourself. You never did.  
And I regret now, that I did not ask you sooner.”, Coran had looked at him, an apologetic frown painfully visible on his face.

“The CD we found has evidence of a security footage that shows the driver that killed my niece. We also found a box in the McClain household that contains transactions he made to that very person.

“I-”, Coran had finally stopped, as he tried tried to breathe again.  
“I´ve waited so long for this moment to happen. But I caused so many people to suffer, I am so – so sorry, Keith.”

Keith had just stared at him for one more second. Then he had left. Coran called out to him, but Keith could not bear this any longer.  
Everyone was blaming themselves. But it was not Keith they should apologize to. It was Lance. Only that Lance had decided to be a dick and leave.

Which was why he did not understand, why he came to the grave yard in the first place.  
Two small stones lay on top of the grave.

“Lance Leandro McClain and Veronica McClain”, stood on them.  
Veronica had been older than Lance, Keith noticed. But the dates of their death were so close together, that Keith did not dare look at them.

People, to Keith, never died.  
He had thought it before. And every time someone did die, the thought resurfaced in his mind.  
Because dying was an absolute. It meant that they disappeared and would never come back and that it was nobodies fault.  
And Keith envied that that was what everyone else saw in them.

But, Keith knew, ever since his mother had died, that people always had a choice.  
And he realized now, as he did all the time, that people always choose to leave.  
Because every ghost would disappear then and again. Even Allura disappeared all the time. And she stayed only for her job.  
She was forced by his side. She did not have an option. Allura made that clear again and again.

Pidge, Hunk, Shiro, even his friends would die and choose to disappear sooner or later.  
Because that´s what everyone did.  
That´s why Keith always kept a certain distance to people. Even his own brother, whom he cared for deeply.

Lance, he had started to trust. Though he was aware of the hurtful truth. For the saddest amount of time, Keith had told himself that Lance would never leave his friends behind. And then, Lance did exactly that.

Without an explanation. Because his family was more important. Keith was stuck in his own mind on that. How could he be so selfish to expect Lance to stay only for him?  
How could he hope to be even remotely as important as Lance´s family was to him? As his sister was to him?

Only because Lance was more important to Keith than even Allura was?  
She had been there for him ever since his mother died. Taken care of him. She was the only constant in his life. And disappeared all the time without an explanation. But he could at least be sure that she´d return.

What had happened?

Lance had been so lively the moment he met him. No difference to his living self. No cold behavior, no mourning of his death. He just hang around, talking to him.  
Invading his private life without his approval. What had Lance done to become such an ingrained part of his life? Keith wanted to hate him. He really did. But he could not. Not, when he would never talk to him again. Or so he thought.

“Wow, you look like someone has died.”

Keith groaned. “I am at a grave yard, what do you expect, hap-”, Keith stopped. And turned around.

“Wow, what a nice greeting. Is that what you said to your mother when she passed away? She wanted me to send you her best wishes, by the way. Your father, too.”  
Lance looked at him with the same crooked smile, he always send him.

Keith´s eyes widened in shock.

He didn´t imagine it. Not at all. Right there, stood Lance. Still translucent, still with that stupid grin on his features. But he looked exhausted.

“What -”  
“Yeah, I know. It´s been a rough couple of years for me. I mean, I´m used to accidents and all. But those mass suicides are getting old. Who even believes in old satanic rituals? Believe me, none of them were pleased when they found out.  
Overworking was never my thing.”

“Years? What are you talking about? What is that on your head?” He stood up. Still incredulous.

Lance should be gone. He had gone to the afterlife. Keith was certain. He had seen it happen many times before.

“Oh that? Allura quit her job and kind of hired me, I guess? Apparently this diadem thing comes with the job description.”

Keith stared at him. He could not help it.  
“You´re really here?”, he asked incredulous.

“Yeah. What did you think? That I was a ghost or something?” Lance chuckled at his own joke.  
“No seriously. I told you I´d come back. Don´t you trust me?”  
And then Keith cracked an obscure smile.

“Dude, if you don´t answer, I have to doubt our friendship.”, Lance put his hand on his heart in mock betrayal.

Still, Keith smiled as his heart warmed from the inside out. It felt like he was bleeding inside. Bizarre comparison, certainly, but sometimes the bleeding was what prevented the burning sensation of your wounds. And that´s what he felt. Along with the warmth it spread and the lightheaded feeling it caused.

Lance stopped in his tracks, because the feeling he usually had around Keith, the warmth, the sparkling, it was heating up. To the point were Lance felt enveloped in the pure presence of the other boy.  
Lance tried to smile back.  
“Did – did something happen, while I was gone?”  
Keith laughed. Really laughed, because really? Lance had been gone for like two weeks. And Keith just went through all the stages of fear over betrayal and loneliness to – well – this. Relief. There is no better word for it.

Keith was just – speechless.

“Not really. Just – thank you, I guess?”, Keith finally brought out, smile still wide on his face.  
“Thanks for what?”  
Keith made a pause. Lance did not know what it was, but he must have done something for Keith to react like this. He did not know he was everything Keith had ever denied himself to hope for.

This was a new beginning. And it would be a work in progress as they would move on with their life´s. Keith could not know how to explain it. The feeling he had could not be described in words. He did not know when it had started, where it came from or where it would eventually lead.  
But it was a start.

“Nothing, just. -”, Keith stopped himself at the questioning look on Lance´s face.  
“You´re here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it. The longest fanfiction I´ve ever written D: But I say that every time XD I hope I killed you with the slowest slow burn to ever slow burn. XD

**Author's Note:**

> Mayhaps this Story will be a bit messy. But I´ve worked quite hard on it, so I hope you will like it either way.  
> Critiques are, as alway, very welcome.


End file.
